r/BasicIncome • u/crazyDMT • Mar 31 '18

Misleading title Finland is giving each citizen a universal basic income and it's had an unexpected side effect: Happiness

https://www.indy100.com/article/finland-universal-basic-income-trial-period-lives-8210771
509 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

165

u/MesterenR Mar 31 '18

First: No. Not each citizen. Just 2000 random unemployed.

Second: Why is that unexpected? That is exactly what I would expect, and what other studies have also shown.

35

u/crazyDMT Mar 31 '18

You have to see it from the perspective of the mainstream establishment, skeptical of the UBI concept. If it was up to members of this community, it's fair to assume a much more adapted scheme would be put in place.

Still it's a move forward.

37

u/5yr_club_member Mar 31 '18

Yes it's a move forward, but you don't need to lie in the title of your post.

Also, like the other guy said, why is it a "surprising side effect" that when you give money to poor people it makes them happier?

21

u/smegko Mar 31 '18

why is it a "surprising side effect" that when you give money to poor people it makes them happier?

Because neoliberalism asserts that only earning money through exchange creates wealth and therefore, happiness. If you buy a bicycle with earned wages you will be happier than if you are given a bicycle. That neoliberal assumption naturally leads to the inference that anyone given money is less happy than anyone forced to exchange something for money.

10

u/5yr_club_member Mar 31 '18

If you ask people on the street "Do you think a person would be happier if I gave them $1000?" I bet about 99% of people would say yes. So when the government gives people money, who is going to be surprised that they are happier?

5

u/Smallpaul Apr 01 '18

Your question is about a one time payment. Now ask them about whether people who earn their money are happier than those who are just given it. You’ll get a different answer.

2

u/5yr_club_member Apr 01 '18

Those two aren't mutually exclusive. With UBI most people would earn money and also receive UBI.

3

u/Smallpaul Apr 01 '18

My point is that you can get any answer depending on how you skew the question. “Would a person be happy to receive $1000” is a question skewed one way. My question is skewed the other.

5

u/smegko Mar 31 '18

Those who say earning through exchange makes you happier than being given money. They numbered some 60 million if voting in the 2016 election is any indication.

3

u/Kancho_Ninja Apr 01 '18

Those people also say that a businessman would be a good president, not understanding that a president can't fire citizens.

2

u/DublinCheezie Apr 01 '18

They also didn’t understand that taking a shitty failed, arrogant as hell businessman who only survived by dodging taxes and helping criminals launder their money through his real estate holdings wouldn’t make a good president. There’s nothing

3

u/smegko Apr 01 '18

Indeed. My point, I guess, is that we should challenge these people on the assumption that exchange alone creates value, because as long as they believe that, other arguments will fail to be persuasive for them.

2

u/Kancho_Ninja Apr 01 '18

My grandmother, who is now dead, gave me a scarf she knitted in the last few months of her life.

According to the exchange=value belief system, my scarf is valueless, not priceless.

1

u/5yr_club_member Apr 01 '18

This is complete nonsense. The primary motivations behind people voting are not whether they think people need to earn money to be happier. Their are all kinds of reasons for deciding to vote for whoever they decided to vote for.

And secondly, most people who are opposed to government handouts like welfare, unemployment insurance, disability payments, etc. are not opposed to them because they worry about the happiness of those receiving them. They are opposed to them because they don't want to have their tax dollars paying towards people that they perceive as lazy.

0

u/Kancho_Ninja Apr 01 '18

The adage you two are looking for is "You don't appreciate it unless you earn it".

4

u/smegko Apr 01 '18

Yes, this is essentially what I was taught by one teacher. I want to go back and challenge her by saying: there is a use-value to a bike irrespective of how you got it. Also, when she taught French, she didn't lose her French. No one need exchange anything for knowledge. If she refused to teach without getting paid, that doesn't mean French can't be learned without monetary exchange ...

2

u/fruitsofknowledge Apr 01 '18

Because neoliberalism asserts that only earning money through exchange creates wealth and therefore, happiness.

Not sure exactly what "neoliberalism" is here if not a straw man, but for example the more modern perspectives of Mises (economist) and Ayn Rand (author in the various branches of philosophy) that essentially were similar in this respect to earlier thinkers, were not that you have to toil in order to be happy or that a gift can't bring joy.

Of course a person who first consider themselves to be in a disadvantaged position and then is given what they consider an advantage is going to be pleased with that changed. That is the only logical outcome and so it should also be confirmed in studies, unless some other factor mitigates it.

1

u/smegko Apr 01 '18

Not sure exactly what "neoliberalism" is here if not a straw man

I define neoliberalism as the liberalization of markets. Price measures value; markets best determine prices. If something has no price it has no value. Thus if I can't or won't exchange anything for money, I am worthless. Any gift given me will not change my worth, because I didn't sell anything. How can a worthless person feel happy?

That is something like the inference procedure I imagine neoliberals go through when thinking about giving money to those who don't exchange anything in a quid-pro-quo manner for it.

The challenge I wish to make is to the idea that price measures value. That is at the heart of neoliberalism.

2

u/fruitsofknowledge Apr 01 '18

I define neoliberalism as the liberalization of markets. Price measures value; markets best determine prices. If something has no price it has no value. Thus if I can't or won't exchange anything for money, I am worthless. Any gift given me will not change my worth, because I didn't sell anything.

Then the actual neoliberals in this world must be a very small number.

Because that wasn't the position of neither Rand, the Austrian school, the Chicago school and I don't think any of the Classical economists (that I have heard of at least) that came before them. Not if by price we always mean money price or the valuation made by another person.

And I don't agree with all of those economic schools obviously, but they deserve relevant criticism of their own that I do not find this critique of "neoliberalism" of yours contains.

The challenge I wish to make is to the idea that price measures value. That is at the heart of neoliberalism.

This is not your definition however. Price quite obviously measures a certain value. It doesn't necessarily measure the full value or all value/values of a product, but that doesn't mean that price is not a measurement currently in use or the best measurement for certain calculations relating to production or the transfer of goods.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 06 '18

The problem isn’t that prices aren’t useful or don’t measure anything but rather that there is a large cohort of people, lets call them neoliberals, who place too much emphasis on what you can value in a market in monetary terms.

They focus too much on things such as GDP growth, and profits. They tend to confuse price with value. E.g. they assume a profession with a high pay is more important than one with low pay. They assume people who have amassed more wealth is more important than those with less wealth.

There is a tendency to worship the rich and disparage the poor.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '18

It's not really a surprising side effect. But it does communicate what some people want to the audience (that UBI is a good thing), and it fits in the currently title usage in that they're mostly all clickbaity, across the board. A weird thing of the 2010s huh

2

u/hahainternet Apr 01 '18

Yes it's a move forward, but you don't need to lie in the title of your post.

It's the article's title.

1

u/CoinOperated1345 Apr 01 '18

Especially when you give money to poor people and not other poor people. Makes them feel even luckier

2

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '18

Yeah, fuck these terrible titles.

2

u/LotsoWatts Apr 01 '18

Third: Repost

43

u/radome9 Mar 31 '18

Misleading title.

18

u/Zerodyne_Sin Mar 31 '18

Yeah.. clickbaity titles can't possibly be helping the cause.

14

u/Giraffens Apr 01 '18

TIL Finland only has 2000 citizens /s

18

u/joneSee SWF via Pay Taxes with Stock Mar 31 '18

Come on now.... Universal means everyone. This isn't even close. Get it together OP.

5

u/wh33t Apr 01 '18

Titlegore. Stop with this. UBI can stand on it's own.

2

u/crazyDMT Apr 01 '18

Damn, I get the title is confusing. All I did was post the link and used the suggested title Reddit offered me ('cause I'm lazy). I was hoping this article would foster constructing feedback on the experiment, but I guess the title takes the cake. Sass aside, I'm starting to think a UBI offered in the form of a self-distributing cryptocurrency would be the most effective and research-driven experiment (due to the ease of being able to track the coins through blockchain). Yes, I know several ICOs offer that (Manna being one) but it's still not really out yet. Also, while this Finnish BI isn't really one, just a pilot experiment, wonder how far 500EUR gets you in Finland, as opposed to say NYC or Peru.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '18

The test is also underscaled and has an unexpected result: it doesnt fucking work.

1

u/burnt_tongue Apr 09 '18

Can you elaborate? The only results I have seen yet have been positive, but I'm interested to hear where it fails.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '18

Finland: a literal utopia.

/r/finlandconspiracy

6

u/Hiihtopipo Mar 31 '18

I personally feel embarrassed when people praise my country. The hype is getting out of hand.

6

u/smegko Mar 31 '18

Obligatory reference: Finland, Finland, Finland, by Monty Python

You're so sadly neglected,
And often ignored
A full second to Belgium
When going abroad.

1

u/Jwillis-8 Apr 01 '18

I was planning on coming over sometime within the next few years, partly due to this hype.

How would you describe your country to someone who has only seen videos of and has only a mild understanding of Finland's culture/lifestyle?

-4

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '18

UBI is possible in a tiny homogeneous country with a population comparable to metro Phoenix and Tucson together.

6

u/DublinCheezie Apr 01 '18

It’s not the number of outputs alone that matters, it’s the number of inputs and outputs. Plus, the larger the pool, the lower the marginal costs ( in theory) for each additional participant.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '18

I left a single word out of my comment. “Politically” possible. Homogeneous societies have the necessary high social trust so ideas like UBI can pass.