>From The Belleville Intelligencer 'Ontario is on the precipice of a three-year pilot to test out the concept of a guaranteed basic income and residents have been invited to share their views on the proposal online, as well as during several public consultations ...
'It’s a consultation Ruth Ingersoll, executive director for Community Development Council of Quinte, certainly plans to get in on. ' “I like the model and the idea of a basic income,” said Ingersoll, adding it would relieve many of the barriers surrounding the complex Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and social assistance programs. “I think basic income is a more dignified and respectful way to give people money and it would give everybody an income floor.” 'Ingersoll also said she believes it would eliminate chronic cycles of poverty exacerbated by the systems currently in place — having to liquidate assets and prove they’re poor in order to receive assistance. '... A basic income would also open up more opportunities to those living below the poverty line, like getting a post-secondary education or to supplement part-time “precarious” work. '... It goes beyond just money in the bank for Ingersoll, it also removes a lot of anxiety and stress in people’s lives. '“Our poverty isn’t just with people on social assistance and ODSP, our poverty is with the working poor as well. People are only able to find part-time minimum wage jobs. '“We have people coming in our doors working two to three jobs just to make ends meet.” 'A common argument against basic income is the worry it will incentivize people to stay unemployed and live off the government. 'It’s a worry Ingersoll doesn’t share, saying she feels the opposite is more likely. 'Part-time work, added to a basic income, would allow people currently on social assistance to live above the poverty line.' Read more ... http://www.intelligencer.ca/2016/11/18/can-guaranteed-basic-income-work? On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 5:39 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Quoting the article: > > "Yet figuring out how such a system [Universal Basic Income] could be > afforded -- and not turn a country into a nation of slackers -- is unclear." > > > As usual the author misses the point. If robots do all the work why should > anyone care whether people turn into slackers? > > This sort of thinking has always been common. When writing was invented > the ancient Greeks supposedly complained that young people no longer > memorized The Odyssey. Now that we have computers, people complain that > grade school students no longer learn how to write in script. I suppose > that when automobiles became common, elderly people fretted that young > people no longer knew how to ride horses. > > You cannot expect people to know how to use obsolete technology they do > not use. Someday that will include all technology. People will hardly know > how to tie their own shoes, never mind cooking or building a house. That > will be a problem for our grandchildren. > > See Arthur C. Clarke's masterpiece "Profiles of the Future," chapters 12 > and 13. Here is the end of chapter 13, describing a world in which all > material goods are available in unlimited quantities for free: > > It is certainly fortunate that the replicator, if it can ever be built at > all, lies far in the future, at the end of many social revolutions. > Confronted by it, our own culture would collapse speedily into sybaritic > hedonism, followed immediately by the boredom of absolute satiety. Some > cynics may doubt if any society of human beings could adjust itself to > unlimited abundance and the lifting of the curse of Adam—a curse which may > be a blessing in disguise. > > Yet in every age, a few men have known such freedom, and not all of them > have been corrupted by it. Indeed, I would define a civilized man as one > who can be happily occupied for a lifetime even if he has no need to work > for a living. This means that the greatest problem of the future is > civilizing the human race; but we know that already. > > So we may hope, therefore, that one day our age of roaring factories and > bulging warehouses will pass away, as the spinning wheel and the home loom > and the butter churn passed before them. And then our descendants, no > longer cluttered up with possessions, will remember what many of us have > forgotten—that the only things in the world that really matter are such > imponderables as beauty and wisdom, laughter and love. > > > - Jed > >
