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Who’ll be incentivized to come running to tie my shoes?

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There’s a way to debate the pros and cons of a universal basic income, and there’s a way to say Remember me when you’re building tumbrels!

In reality, there are two big problems. The first, and probably most important, is that it destroys incentives. Sure, if you are a well-paid lawyer or banker (or a columnist who loves his work, come to think of it), you might well carry on working even if you didn’t really need to. But the Tesco delivery driver? The office cleaner?

But of course. The nasty B-Arkers won’t go to their dreadful dreary jobs that keep the Lynns of the world fed, clothed and not wallowing in their own filth, unless the only other choice is starving to death. It can’t possibly be that they get any sense of fulfillment from {shudder} operating heavy machinery such as trucks and vacuum cleaners.

As an aside, I can’t tell if Lynn is imagining a world in which the well-paid lawyer receives a UBI that is equal to the salary of a well-paid lawyer; the lawyer is no longer well-paid but loves his job so much that he keeps working (did … I hear hollow laughter?); or if Lynn is a smeghead more concerned with pushing the myth of his superiority over the guy who cleans up after him than making anything resembling a coherent argument.

At the bottom end of the labour market, it will be a lot harder to persuade people to clock in every morning if they can simply collect a cheque every week for doing nothing.

I admit I’m not the world’s best capitalist, but it seems that a way around this potential problem is to offer some form of inducement that makes going to work attractive. Say, by ensuring that the take-home salary of every worker is higher than what they’d receive under the UBI.

Better yet (and remember I did say I’m not the world’s best capitalist) why not pay people according to the benefit they provide to society as a whole and the unpleasantness of the task? Lynn seems to believe tasks such as truck driving and office cleaning are both, which is why people must be incentivized to do them. O.K. let’s incentivize the hell out of them. The fortunate sons with fun, easy jobs can get by on a lower salary and job satisfaction.

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