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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 98.127.119.21 (talk) at 01:36, 8 March 2014 (→Paragraph removed from Affordability section: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Need for separate page from BIG

Yes most of the content here was taken from BIG page. Basic income guarantee is a form of guaranteed or minimum income. It simply is not the same as basic income. There is some content improvement on this page. The arguments section is better than the BIG page, and the clarity for why the 2 are different is better made.

I fail to see any justification behind your decision to split the 2 pages. Please at least provide sources that prove that BIG is different from BI. Also, when splitting the pages you could have done it properly, ie. take the good stuff from the BIG page (implementations, worldwide movement...). Stanjourdan (talk) 10:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The sources used to be on the page. http://www.naturalfinance.net/2013/03/basic-income-real-definition-and.html shows that they are completely different philosophies. Guaranteed income is payment to not work, and can be abused by any item in the long list of example abuses. Basic income is freedom to do any work. The same payment is received regardless of other income. To advocate for minimum income instead of basic income is to recognize that you would prefer more free money than less free money, but hope that no one sees how broken and unaffordable the policy would be. The stupidity/objectionability of minincome causes no one to have nice things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.171.46 (talk) 14:39, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aggressive Distinction section

It seems strange to me to have this be the first major section of the article, but, more importantly, the example used to compare basic income and guaranteed income doesn't make sense. When talking about basic income, the example talks about the policy as giving an effective wage increase to workers as a way of pointing out that people take home more money. It's not obvious from the example that a basic income actually doesn't change the effective marginal pay someone receives for an additional hour of work; I'd say the example misleadingly suggests that marginal pay increases. When talking about guaranteed income, the example seems to be saying that a guaranteed income reduces marginal pay for everyone, but this isn't true. A guaranteed income reduces effective marginal pay to $0/hr until a worker has earned more than the guaranteed level given his/her nominal pay rate, and then effective marginal pay is equal to the nominal rate after that. This is really important since concerns about incentives are central to arguments about a basic or guaranteed income. 72.177.123.14 (talk) 02:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. A decent graph is probably the best way of making this clear. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The marginal pay calculation was correct at: http://www.naturalfinance.net/2013/03/basic-income-real-definition-and.html. For basic income, marginal pay is equal to any actual work pay. For guaranteed income, it might be 0 for the first 6 months of the year, then your actual pay for the rest of the year. If you lose your job midway through the year, then you receive no pay. If you were out of work for first half of the year, then there is no reason to get a job until the start of next year. If you can get your employer to pay you once every 3 years, then you can make much more money abusing the system that way. Basic income has no possible abuse/disapointment. Minimum income is a scam that is poorly thought out, has a cute political ring to it, but will (and should) not actually win a political vote because it is a corrupt scam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.171.46 (talk) 14:58, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And yet it is the system which is being used, apparently quite successfully, in Brazil. Perhaps we need to look at that and see what the actual rate of abuse is rather than talking about theoretical means of abusing it which may actually be quite rare in practice. It is not Wikipedia's mission to judge which method is worthy and which unworthy. We should only be setting the facts in front of our readers and letting them decide which is best for themselves. Those facts may of course include the fact that others hold opinions (which we may describe) on Basic Income but that's it. Like yourself I think that a Basic Income is far better than a Guaranteed Income and for the same reasons. But we need to make people aware of the pros and cons of each so that they can make their own minds up. -- Derek Ross | Talk 10:23, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The contrast to Guaranteed income is necessary because of the common confusion between the two. Its also relevant to prevent this page from reverting back to a forwarding link to guaranteed income, and guaranteed income proponents and basic income opponents hijacking the page to leave readers confused.

Protecting the Proposed benefits section

It is essential that the page contains a proposed benefits section. The sourcing of the arguments should not be essentially important, but proposals critical of the sourcing need to make a strong effort at improving the proposed benefits section rather than just vandalize it away. There is no obvious deficiency with the source, either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.171.46 (talk) 01:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Effects on inflation

I think the criticisms needs to include a section on the effect on inflation. If everyone has more money to spend, then prices for goods will go up where the supply of those goods can not expand fast enough to match the new demand, a good example of which is housing- land is fixed in supply, and whilst we can (and should) increase housing density to accomodate more people, ultimately it will drive up the price of living. This then negates many of the benefits of increased disposable income. See inflation - I've found this so far: http://www.usbig.net/papers/189-Smith--inflation.doc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.74.63.66 (talk) 14:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's one of the reasons why a proposal for a Basic Income is often paired with a proposal for a Land Value Tax. However be careful. This is an area which is not theoretically well understood. There is little agreement over the outcome of implementing a BI. So reliable sources are more likely to state opinion as if it was fact than usual. You would be best to use sources which describe historical examples where a BI caused inflation (or not) and those could be difficult to find. If you do use a source which describes theory, it is important to state that "So-and-so says that..." in order to maintain the Neutral Point Of View. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article contains opinion

In the section which mentions 'refusal to work', there is an analysis which appears to be original work i.e. the view of the writer. I see no issue with including views from experts in the field when they are appropriately balanced to include pro and con positions, but they ought to be referenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.225.76.216 (talk) 16:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Page is in rough shape

With the recent purge of content, the page is not as informative as it once was. The biggest problem is the first section which had the "proposed benefits of basic income" topic removed. One editor may appear to hate naturalfinance.net, since the reason for removal was declaring that site to be a blog. Also removed were affordability calculations that were researched and verified with working links, but also published on a platform that can be declared to be a blog. Meanwhile the content left in the top section has poor references that do not appear to match the content. For instance there is no reference for any conclusive argument or data that basic income creates a disincentive to work, and the link to reciprocity is not online, and the topic not a major issue. Both of those topics have good quality "blog classifiable" sources available.

In order to Be Bold, I would recommend that eligible source material be broadened to include any quality content, including from sources that are not government funded. Basic income is after all not within any traditional government agenda, and so limiting information to sources funded by interests against basic income harms the quality of the article, and prejudices/suppresses the article from being informative and enlightening. Barring this broadened content eligibility, we all need guidance for what is eligible content, and perhaps what makes naturalfinance.net ineligible. (The content there was written in 2011, and has been adopted, whether independently or without attribution, by other authors)

Here is the major recent deletion https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Basic_income&diff=595677190&oldid=595667344 . Specifically the proposed benefits section should be reproduced. Some of these can be sourced elsewhere, but we need a clear understanding of why it was originally deleted: Godspiral (talk) 22:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that you have to ask this shows why you're having trouble.
Try reading WP:VER. In a nutshell, you want academic sources, also books (NOT self published books), NOT self published websites, NOT blogs, NOT necessarily government sites either unless they're well respected and apolitical, that have been through a decent editorial process.GliderMaven (talk) 00:49, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are quite a few issues with that. Books are less verifiable than web links. To be clear, Government funded sources include academia, and they are also less verifiable if not freely accessible. What makes basic income special is that, unlike virtually every other political proposition, the Champion of basic income gains no privilege whatsoever over other citizens, and so the only reason to champion UBI is to provide freedom and dignity to everyone. The relevance is that there is no business model for power accumulation behind it, and that affects the sources available. Limiting information sources to entrenched power sources (Government, academia and corporate) stacks the deck with biased point of view in favour of power structures, or in the case of the state of this page, makes it impossible to describe UBI. There is great content available on the web for UBI. Academic work is more timid, less accessible, and often of lower quality than other research on UBI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Godspiral (talk • contribs) 01:23, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No page can be an exemption from basic policy. Dougweller (talk) 08:21, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There should be some priomordial quality mandate. Wikipedia should want quality verifiable references. If [WP:VER] is intended to be weaponized then a bot could be made that deletes pages and sections based on whether the section contains an insufficiently prestigious reference. Treating WP:VER as an intentional algorithm would allow an attacker to delete perhaps as high as 90% of wikipedia without even needing to look at the content. No one could invoke any objection to the mass deletion if the literal interpretation of WP:VER is the most important rule on wikipedia. Vandalism becomes impossible if criteria for removal applied to a science page can be robotically applied to a philosophy page.
The above attack would meet a common sense interpretation of vandalism. The only possible protection from the mass deletion attack is if [WP:VAN] is considered to have higher priority for literal interpretation than WP:VER. There should already be a common sense acceptance that Vandalism is more dangerous and objectively assessed than the quality of referenced material, and as shown above, rejecting the statement binds wikipedia to a suicide pact. Its my view that the recent deletions are indistinguishable from robotic vandalism and they deleted high quality and verifiable references based only on the content hosting platform.
If Vandalism and Verifiability are to be equally considered in actions, then restoring the content and tagging it as needing better sources should be done. Also if there is to be a defense from robotic deletion of the majority of wikipedia, then "deletors" that have shown no previous contribution to the page should be treated more suspiciously than those who have helped build it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Godspiral (talk • contribs) 13:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:BURDEN. No algorithm can possibly work, and you continue to show a refusal to show good faith - see WP:AGF. Dougweller (talk) 14:03, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You appear to be misunderstanding. Surely a section titled proposed benefits need only prove that the benefits have been proposed, and have cogent arguments made at the reference. If there are counter arguments, there is room on the page for them, but I don't believe that anyone sensible denies that the benefits have been proposed and have a high degree of plausibility. The key point is that only evidence that they have been proposed is needed. You may wish to explain your accusation of "refusal to show good faith", but hopefully you see that it is inappropriate. Godspiral (talk) 17:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Plausible is good. Right is better. Even if nobody knows what's right and wrong, who says they have a high enough degree of plausibility to be included in the article? The point of Wikipedia is that by tying everything to reliable sources, the reliable sources say whether something is plausible and important for us, and we simply summarise. If you can back these 'plausible' points up with reliable sources, fantastic, and then by all means add them back to the article, but with the references for them.GliderMaven (talk) 19:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Its 100% right and certain that the benefits have been proposed, and self evident from any reference that have proposed them. There also does not exist any reliable refutation of any of the list of proposed benefits. The standard for inclusion as proposed benefits is (or should be) that they are debatable. There is no evidence that they are implausible, and the points are clearly argued. It is the most critical section of the entire article after all, and has been up on the page for about 1 year, for the scrutiny of the entire community. Its likely that any feeling you may have that the information is wrong is misguided, and if you expressed those feelings, you'd have an opportunity to learn from the community why those feelings may be in a weaker debating position than some of the proposed benefits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Godspiral (talk • contribs) 19:53, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Even if correct, this is a moot point unless a reliable source for the proposed benefits is added to the article. 172.56.19.35 (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No. We need expert opinions, not just the opinions of some random-ass people that cobbled together a website. You can find them in reliable sources.
Now we've pointed you to Wikipedia's rules. If you want to edit Wikipedia you have to follow them. If you fail to follow Wikipedia's rules, which seems to be practically certain given your expressed views on its rules, you will very probably be blocked again.GliderMaven (talk) 20:43, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Benefits

naturalfinance.net describes several purported benefits of social dividends and basic income:[1]

  • Wealth redistribution is the best possible economic development program because the wealthy don't spend as great a portion of their income as the poor do.
  • Basic income is the most efficient possible form of wealth redistribution because there is no bureaucratic overhead needed to filter recipients, or find and punish abusers.
  • Basic income as an alternative to public retirement pensions (such as social security in the US) is the only possible prevention of generational theft that will occur if the funding sustainability of future retiree pensions and care is threatened
  • Reduced crime as a result of lower levels of desperation.
  • Balanced power in the labour market as a result of not needing work out of desperation, and better competitive position of workers if some people choose not to work.[2]
  • Better work opportunities as a result of people better able to afford an education or business start up.
  • Smaller government made possible and attractive by the alternative of increased basic income to offset any program cost reduction. Viewed this way, the cost of every government program is paid for equally by each citizen, even if the source of government revenue is progressive income taxation.
  • Social justice is achieved efficiently and automatically, with less requirement on charity and welfare.
  • It is easier for volunteer home owners to help the poor and secluded through group homes by being able to rely on their certain income. Its possible and easier for the disadvantaged to group up and help themselves in the same manner.
  • Natural finance's definition of social dividends (variable basic income: tax revenue surplus over social program expenses) essentially allows the level of basic income paid to citizens to rise with economic, productivity, and automation growth. The affordability of basic income adjusts automatically to the performance of the economy.
Naturalfinance.net is not a reliable source, and, as well, pro-con sections are deprecated in Wikipedia. A summary of an unreliable source will and should ultimately only be deleted from any article. What you ideally want is something like a paper in an economics journal you can refer to.GliderMaven (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. If the editor really thinks Naturalfinance.net is a reliable source by our criteria, he can go to WP:RSN. Dougweller (talk) 20:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Paragraph removed from Affordability section

>To estimate affordability of basic income in the US, the starting point of 265M adult citizens and $6.3 Trillion in estimated federal, state, and local government spending means that replacing all US government spending can provide nearly $25k per citizen in basic income. Several people have used the simplicity of a flat tax to demonstrate affordability. Someone has even hosted a UBI calculator.

This entire section is original research, uncited, and confusing. I've removed it from the article, if someone wants to clean it up and find sources feel free to put it back in. 98.127.119.21 (talk) 01:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ Pascal J. (2012-06-04). "21st century venture capital: The imperative need for social dividends". Natural Finance. Retrieved 2013-07-24.
  2. ^ Pascal J. (2013-02-28). "21st century venture capital: Most people support slavery". Natural Finance. Retrieved 2013-07-24.
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