RE: Hi Steemit! Scott Santens here. If you've ever googled "basic income", you may have read something I've written.
Wow, this post is so amazing I am not even sure where to start. I will try my best to organize all my thoughts.
I have heard about this idea from someone in Europe who was doing this too. He was saying that once he was able to have a guaranteed 1,000$ a month, that was when he was really able to start truly creating what he wanted for the first time in his life.
At some point when I was growing up, I gained the idea that money would solve problems. Every since then I have been conflicted creating and doing what I want Vs. making a lot of money to have the power to solve any problem that could happen.
I now know that this is a false truth that I have, but at the same time it is hard to change that within me. Through out my day to day life I am constantly distracted between what I want to create and what will make me money.
Which then ends up with me doing very little to nothing with my time.
When I first discovered about steemit I saw this as a way of accomplishing both. It helped motivate me to start creating again because of the monetary reward that came with it; I felt like I was fulfilling both my needs, instead of having to sacrifice one for the other.
Its has helped me grow with the focus of creating and making money. Yet lately I feel lost. I no longer know if what I am creating is good or if it is what I want to create. Mostly because I am letting other people decided the value of what I create for me based on what they judge the reward value should be.
I feel there is a lot of programming through propaganda to create these Ideas to make good workers. Like the phrase "what do you do for a living"? People who are desperate are easier to control. I feel education has been institutionalized to train and create good little worker with the right skills.
I fully believe basic income to be the answer. Although since the government(s) is running on a centralized debt system that fund something that is inherently evil, I do not know if it is a good idea for it to be generate through them.
Thank you for inspiring me with this post. It is now my goal to gain a passive income of 1,000$ a month which will serve as my basic income. I think this might solve my problem of not being able to focus my energy & attention on things were money is not present. Giving me the ability to say "no" or "fuck you" when I need to focus on what I want instead ^_^
Thank you, and I have to say your sentence right here is a key understanding:
"I am letting other people decide the value of what I create for me based on what they judge the reward value should be."
Those who believe markets are "perfect magical calculators" are taking a good idea, which is the concept of a market, and putting it on a pedestal it does not belong on. Yes, markets can indeed put a price on things, and in so doing function incredibly to leverage scarce resources to maximum effect in certain cases, but in other cases, markets can also fail miserably at determining value.
I think a prime example is any well-known artist who only became well-known after death, and died poor. A single painting that sells for $1 million dollars apparently reflects the art itself as a work of genius, but the work itself didn't change. It's the same piece of work that the artist couldn't sell during their lifetime, or sold for like $5 perhaps.
Now imagine the person who sells such a painting. Perhaps someone who buys a painting for $500,000 and sells it later for $1 million... did they add $500,000 in value to the painting? Compare this $500,000 as being perhaps 10 times more than the artist who painted it earned off their painting during their entire lifetime. Is the act of selling on their painting more valuable than the act of creating that painting and every other painting that artist ever created? Of course not! But there are definitely those who will conclude that based on the numbers.
We do not at all value extremely important work sufficiently. Did you know 1/3 of Americans are putting in 1.2 billion hours per week of unpaid care work? It's value if paid is estimated as being about $700 billion per year, or 5% of GDP that's missing from GDP, if it were calculated into it.
Why is that work not considered work, and therefore not even valuable, when the same work that does get paid is considered as valuable?
Here's another question. Imagine a small community of five houses, each with one parent, each with one kid, where each parent pays one of the parents for daycare so they can work doing daycare for another parent. Economists would consider this as full employment. Every one has a job, and that job is adding to GDP. Now what if each parent stayed home and raised their own kid? This would be example of full unemployment, with nothing added to GDP, and yet the nature of the work and the time involved is exactly the same. But which example is most likely to lead to better adults decades later? The one where everyone was raised by someone else other than their parent? Or the one where everyone was raised by their parent?
I think society needs to look in the mirror and recognize what isn't being recognized, and redefine what it considers to be work, and what it values. I also think that forcing people to work with the threat of poverty looming over everyone, and even dragging and keeping people down in poverty, is preventing a great deal of work from being done and value being created.
Imagine if only one new Einstein is out there working three dead-end jobs 70 hours per week in the hopes of preventing their family from living in poverty or trying to get them out of it if they're in it... how do we calculate that loss of value to society? How do we even calculate what value Einstein himself added to society?
Once we start thinking about how poorly we judge value, and how much value is being hindered and prevented by a system not built on Level 3 of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs instead of Level 0, it's hard not to see the immediate need for implementing basic income.
Agreed. Time & wisdom & experience & skills and resources and many things are so valuable. Determining the level of value something or someone has is a tough thing to do. Facebook stole from people so much.
This sort of is one of the questions I have re GBI and that is who gets to make the decision to stay home or not?
I don't doubt that there will be a paradigm shift needed, it's just who is the one that's going to make decisions. If it is each individual without strings attached, sign me up.
SDG
It's no different from now, it's just that the incentives (both tangible and intangible) will be rearranged a bit. I could ask the same question about the current system: Who gets to make the decision to stay home or not? The individual does, of course. They weigh up the pros and cons and incentives and disincentives and make an informed choice (if they're lucky). And not to forget that the more precarious your existence is, the less real choice you have in the employment (and otherwise) marketplace. Giving everyone a liveable minimum wage means that people are actually freer to make real choices about how they allocate their time and resources.
I'm sorry, but $1,000/month is not a "liveable" wage in San Fransico, California - although it might be in rural Nebraska. Placing an artificial, sub-poverty income limit on all people is not "freedom," it's just a softer form of slavery than we have right now, but it is slavery nonetheless.
Basic income is not meant to be a complete replacement for income. Tell me if, for those working in San Francisco, a $12,000/yr or $1,000/mo increase in their after tax income would make a difference in their lives?
As far as cost of living differences, Scott address that concern in one of his articles.
I studied at home. My mother taught me. It helped. I wish my mom had Steemit 30 years ago.
Yes, it is an easy trap to fall into; Since so many things can be bought with money, it creates a reality where those with the most money can manipulate that reality to the desires (even if it sacrifices someone else).
Yes, van gogh was a huge victim of this exact thing. Think how he would be if he received the support & acknowledgement now when he was actually alive
Yeah, it is weird how the ability to buy low and sell high is the one that is valued most in the society. But at the same time it adds no particular value to society, yet those are the ones running a high percentage of the market.
Yeah, there needs to be more recognition on supporting caregiver or raising kids. But who will provide that? Right now it seems that the government are controlled by people who love to focus the budget on war?
Even better example than Einstein is Tesla. He was broke most of his life and still created so many practical things yet his innovation was constantly stifled by his money backers focusing more on money that innovation.
Yeah I definitely see the need but I don't know how to make that happen. A lot of us don't even know where to begin getting a basic or passive income.
We love you @BallinConscious. Quite possibly the most interesting guy on Steemit!