I have concerns with #UniversalBasicIncome but welcome discussion. The issue of technological unemployment is real & highlights how fundamentally broken our economy is- abundance leads to poverty and increased working hours rather than leisure. @scottsantens #kssen #ksleg https://twitter.com/scottsantens/status/1276935483717824512

This follows an old critique of capitalism==> labor-displacing technology-leads to unemployment, increased competition for jobs leads to lower wages & worse working conditions thus capitalism creates its own gravediggers- the growing army of the unemployed in age of abundance

I favor #jobguarantee as a solution to this, it gives us flexibility to set the de-facto min. wage/benefits, stabilize the economy, stabilize price levels, and in the long run use abundance/automation to lower the workweek, increase community participation, arts, carework, etc.

The local administration provides participatory systems for distressed communities/regions to rebuild and dream in their communities- to decide the things they care about & are motivated to do, which gives more community control rather than outside profiteers.

Generally speaking the #JobGuarantee program can be adapted to accomplish most of the goals with the #UniversalBasicIncome, and they need not be exclusive of one another.

A few issues I have with the UBI as a way to address technological unemployment:
1. No price anchor, no intrinsic way to stabilize prices & ensure needs are actually met.
2. Poverty as tech. unemployment increases, widening the gap between people who can find work & have only UBI

There is a reason many extremely conservative & right-lib economists are pro-UBI. (Like Friedman who is referenced in your article). They want to liquidate social spending on #healthcare, #housing, #education, privatize everything, give out cash instead & let the markets decide.

The elegance of the program as articulated by Friedman et al. is its simplicity, give a negative income tax, cut spending & boom: #marketmagic. If you diverge from them & institute guarantees for basic needs, UBI is just a little runnin' around money on top.

The problem with this situation and the UBI in general is that there is nothing to act as a price anchor. Over time the cost of healthcare housing & education go up. The money would tend to be absorbed in real estate prices etc. #rentjustwentup

If you index it to grow with #inflation you run the risk of a feedback loop that breaks the economy- if the thing that causes inflation is indexed to inflation, it will spiral. If you don't index it to inflation, it will likely be absorbed/squeezed out over time by rising prices.

The worst case scenario is that social safety net programs are all cut, the UBI significantly lags behind growth in prices and is a massive political revolution needed to ever increase it, so people are left worse off.

The theory of inflation in the article is whack. Even if you wanna go quantity theory of money (MV=PY) it only works because Friedman et al. assume the V & Y are fixed You are saying "we can drastically increase the rate of circulation (V) & (Y) by changing who has the money...

but there won't be inflation because M stays constant!" First off, you violated the assumption of that framework--a higher rate of expenditure (V) given fixed output Y would also be inflationary. M (money supply) assuming you are at least including bank money, would increase.

For the non-economists, free market economists like Milton Friedman often assume in their models that markets tend towards full capacity utilization and full employment- thus we are at maximum possible output. This is, of course patently false in every capitalist country.

So they invent nonsense about 'natural rate of unemployment' to explain why there is unemployment.. Anyways prices (P) times the quantity of all goods sold in the economy (Y) is GDP. Thinking of it only as money is the quantity of money (M) times the velocity of circulation (V)

I.e. the amount of money times the rate of how fast its changes hands is another way to measure GDP, so MV=PY. The [incorrect] argument Friedman makes is Y is fixed cuz markets are full employment unless 'gubmint', and V is fixed by culture & habit so the P is only affected by M.

I suggest you drop the theory of inflation as being unilaterally caused by government printing money. Aside from being wrong it doesn't support your cause. Your idea that the economy doesn't tend towards max output & efficiency (not fixed Y) and that V can change is #MMT

So you acknowledge key #MMT insights but then tack an unnecessary & unhelpful constraint that the government can't do the exact thing you want done- addressing suboptimal & nonfixed output/employment through increased spending. You then dismiss the actual inflationary dangers.

UBI creates in reality the situation rich folk have been saying we are in (but which is actually the inversion of the truth) which is that poor people are getting handouts & living off the hard work of others. UBI will over time increasingly exacerbate resentment of 'freeloaders'

This is a recipe for a perennial struggle over how much to give for the subsistence UBI, and if technological unemployment does seriously reduce the number of jobs, more people will be forced to subsist on UBI rather than choose to.

In the short run it greases the wheels of the economy- functioning as the cushion that many of us with middle-class boomer parents alreadyhave: fallback money that makes it easier to go to grad school and take internships which is is all fine, just not the only way to accomplish.

To nerd out a bit, we run a serious risk of being earth in the #theexpanse (expanse fans say heeeeyyyy) where jobs are rare, most people live in dire poverty on a #BasicIncome on wait lists for job training, & the great wealth is reserved for the people who are able to get a job.

In some ways that picture is more rosy than my expectation of reality. If there is incredible competition for jobs, this puts downward pressure on bargaining power of workers, thus tending to reduce wages, benefits, & increase the workweek for those who get jobs.

The pay structure of many industries will be likely the 'casino economy'- if you work hard enough there's a shot you can be ridiculously wealthy-this motivates people at lower rungs who are working long & hard for crumbs. Hollywood=excellent example, now academia as well :(

I am sure there is plenty of work going on in the #UBI community to solve the problems I mentioned and am hopeful that as #JobGuarantee and #UniversalBasicIncome folks talk to and challenge each other we will end up with better policies.