Guaranteed income, the idea so loved by left and right that it never gets done

Actually, the idea goes back to Tom Paine, not Fourier. Cap and Dividend, Cap and Share or a redistributed Carbon Tax might be mechanisms to implement a UBI, essentially applying permacultural principles to politics (effecting several desirable results from the same measure).

No, torontoprofessor. We've had this discussion many times on babble. Minimum wage and guaranteed income have two different aims and etymologies. Minimum wage aims at setting a lower limit to exploitation of labour and the race to the bottom in competing for jobs. Guaranteed income aims at providing the necessities of life. One is about employment and exploitation, the other is about consumption. If I have the time, I'll seek out the threads where this has been debated ad latinium (which means, to the point where the protagonists have to resort to Latin for fear of coming to fisticuffs).

Sigh. I recall them all too well. Here's a 4-year-old one. There are many others.

I look forward to your reflections.

Canadians don't give a fuck about the poor.

Old thread bump - why is this seemingly great idea so obscure??  This should be a no-brainer for anybody concerned about equality and human dignity, particularly radical democrats, greens, feminists and anti-corporatists.

I think this policy could help a lot of people achieve their goals.  It's about individual empowerment.  It would help parents who want to work more, and it would help parents who want to work less and spend more time with their kids.  It would help victims of domestic abuse leave an abusive spouse or relationship.  It would help students.  It would help the homeless.  It would help small business owners establish their business. It would put UPWARD pressure on wages by increasing the bargaining power of the employee.  Who wouldn't benefit from a $700-$1000 cheque from the government every month, or two weeks, or whatever?

I can think of four groups.  One, employers who rely on desperate employees and would suddenly have to make the work they are offering worth it, because nobody would face the choice: work or starve.  Two, the richest Canadians whose taxes might be increased by more than the amount of their BI grant.  Three, employees of the provincial and federal welfare/EI bureaucracies whose jobs would for the most part disappear overnight.  Four, the elite in general who benefit from the economic insecurity and disempowerment of the lower classes and do NOT want "the masses" getting any delusions about who really owns this society, because if people had this sense of entitlement they might have the nerve to start demanding even more.

We do not need more employment.  We need proper distribution of the wealth produced by labour, by the land and by technology.  Every time we figure out how to produce more with less, there should be a choice - do we keep producing even more, or do we all work a little less, or find some balance?  This is a choice totally removed from the equation under the current conditions. If individuals want to work more, to produce more, I am all for helping them do that and benefit from it.  But many, if not most, individuals would choose to work less if it were feasible for them to do so.  Or at least, work less at their jobs and devote more of their energies toward their own projects and goals, like growing their own food, or creating art.  Or parenting!  Well, it is feasible! If people did work less, that would just open up more job spaces for others who want to work more, by picking up a few shifts here and there. So what is the issue?

I see it as the ideal way to redistribute wealth and also control the money supply.  If there is a recession you can just spend more money into existence by giving it directly to citizens in an equal amount...if there is inflation you just take money out of circulation by taxing those who have most of it.  If a basic income did exert downward pressure on wages and benefits, somehow, then you could just increase the amount of the bi, which would be much easier to do once everyone was receiving it. 

Most importantly of all, it would provide a sense of security, greatly reducing the huge burden of stress imposed on people by not knowing where their next cheque, or even their next meal, is coming from, or even just from knowing that if you lose your job you are in serious trouble.  This would have a beneficial effect on public health because stress is unhealthy and unnecessary!  This stress and economic insecurity turns people to drink and in many cases leads to despair and hopelessness, leading to drugs, prostitution and crime.

Governments really need to shit or get off the pot when it comes to social assistance.  We have this principle, that nobody should starve, so we give out benefits in the most inefficient and odious way, create welfare traps whereby people lose their benefits if they get a job, then when they lose that job in a month they have to wait anothe entire month to get back on welfare...it all leads to people finding under the table work, often illegal, dangerous and degrading, to supplement their welfare cheques.  And it makes those who do work for little money and receive NO income assistance resentful, in this way functioning to divide the lower classes against themselves, for the resentment should really be directed at those who own everything and compel people to work.  I really see this as a no-brainer.

edit: as for "how much," I would start at about $1000 per month, or $500 every two weeks, which is about what a disability pension pays in some provinces.  In other words, it's expected to be enough on a permanent basis (even if, it often isn't).  It should be enough to provide not just the essentials but also full participation in community life - so the cost of housing, food, clothing, communication (telephone and internet), and mobility (bus pass).  But this is a technical question and I think the actual amount is not as important as the idea itself.

edit part 2: I want to emphasize that this is in no way supposed to be a solution for all the problems and power imbalances in our society, merely to help all individuals attain a basic minimum standard of quality of life, freedom, a sense of security, and bargaining power.  It in no way would disparage or disincent efforts at collectivization, nationalization or unionization, or other social programs like universal health care (which we do NOT, and should, have in this country) and IMO would actually support them by emboldening and empowering individuals to not settle for less.

Harper is determined to tie Canada's finances so completely to planes and prisons (and other needless stuff) that there's simply going to be nothing left for social spending from the feds. Health care privatization and property rights would probably follow.

The country can afford GI. It makes sense for businesses and capitalist setup in general to increase demand for goods and services and Keynesian multiplier effect in general, and especially at this time of crisis of capital. And there are political conservatives and social democrats(and especially Tony Martin,  MP from Sault Sainte Marie) who support a GI.

I think the problem is selling it to voters. Most peoples' ideas of poverty relief stem from old world Puritanism and Protestantism that divides "the less fortunate" into deserving poor and undeserving. And so there is that front.

I think the largest hurdle, though, shifts back to the political front. Sir Tony Benn of England's Labour Party once said that a well educated, healthy and confident population is more difficult to govern. 

More difficult to govern!

Sir Tony went on to say that, on the contrary side of things, indebted people become hopeless. And hopeless people don't vote. 

Hopeless people don't vote!

And that's a good situation overall for the status quo side of things.

So I've arrived at the conclusion that it's mainly about killing hope. They must snuff any glimmer of hope in order to instill even more power in the hands of those who have it. But there is no good scientific or economic argument against the GI. It's mainly a political one.