Artwork

Content provided by Alex Howlett. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Alex Howlett or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ro.player.fm/legal.
Player FM - Aplicație Podcast
Treceți offline cu aplicația Player FM !

129 — Workers vs Consumers

1:40:20
 
Distribuie
 

Manage episode 284214311 series 2870328
Content provided by Alex Howlett. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Alex Howlett or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ro.player.fm/legal.

Henry Ford famously insisted on paying his workers enough money to be able to buy the very cars they were producing. But to what extent does that make sense? When is it useful to think of workers and consumers as the same people? Does basic income create a disconnect between these two roles? Is that a problem?
We have two optional readings this week. The first is a 2011 blog post by former labor secretary Robert Reich entitled "Stock Tip: Be Worried. Workers are Consumers"
The second is a 2012 article on Big Think by David Berreby entitled "When Consumers Forget They're Also Workers, Everyone Suffers"
Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included:
BBI #14 — Technological Unemployment
BBI #33 — Basic Income vs Job Guarantee
BBI #56 — Workism
Original YouTube recording
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay

  continue reading

24 episoade

Artwork
iconDistribuie
 
Manage episode 284214311 series 2870328
Content provided by Alex Howlett. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Alex Howlett or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ro.player.fm/legal.

Henry Ford famously insisted on paying his workers enough money to be able to buy the very cars they were producing. But to what extent does that make sense? When is it useful to think of workers and consumers as the same people? Does basic income create a disconnect between these two roles? Is that a problem?
We have two optional readings this week. The first is a 2011 blog post by former labor secretary Robert Reich entitled "Stock Tip: Be Worried. Workers are Consumers"
The second is a 2012 article on Big Think by David Berreby entitled "When Consumers Forget They're Also Workers, Everyone Suffers"
Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included:
BBI #14 — Technological Unemployment
BBI #33 — Basic Income vs Job Guarantee
BBI #56 — Workism
Original YouTube recording
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay

  continue reading

24 episoade

Toate episoadele

×
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
To what extent is it possible to implement basic income independently from the government? What challenges and constraints might face such a system? Conrad Shaw joins us to discuss these questions as well as a new app he's working on called Comingle that hopes to achieve a privately-implemented basic income. Conrad has been a UBI researcher since 2016. Before Comingle, he designed and implemented the UBI pilot program featured in Deia Schlosberg's forthcoming "Bootstraps" documentary series. He has also written extensively on the subject of UBI and built a "UBI calculator" tool that helps people compare different UBI proposals. For reading this week, we have a recent Medium story by Conrad entitled "UBI in an App!" that describes the basics of how Comingle works. Learn more about the Comingle project at comingle.us . Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #19: Project Greshm BBI #26: Cryptocurrencies BBI #79: Private cities Original YouTube Recording Photo by Qim Manifester on Unsplash…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
What is money? What is *modern* money? In what ways is state-issued fiat money different from a commodity-based money? What is the relationship between money and the state? To what extent can a state have "sovereign" control over its currency? What is the relationship between money and taxes? We will explore these and other questions as they relate to the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) framework. BBI has explored MMT before. But this time, we have MMT proponents James Keenan and Adam Rice—hosts of the NYC Deficit Owls Meetup group—joining us to discuss. This week's reading is a 2009 paper by Randall Wray entitled "Understanding Modern Money: How a sovereign currency works." You can find Randall Wray's other publications at the Levy Institute website . For more information, see the Modern MMT Google Group . Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #29: CMT vs MMT BBI #117: Sovereign Money BBI #123: Money From Nothing Original YouTube Recording Image by epSos.de on Wikimedia Commons…
 
Central banks conventionally use various tools to try to stabilize the average prices of consumer goods. The Fed, in particular, attempts to keep price inflation at about 2% per year. Reliably low and stable inflation allows markets to set prices in dollar terms without having to worry about changes in the general purchasing power of the dollar. Nominal GDP level targeting is a monetary policy alternative to inflation targeting that stabilizes the total amount of money being spent on the economy's products. This allows the purchasing power of the dollar to adjust in response to changes in the level of economic output. In other words, if there's more (less) total stuff to buy, then each individual dollar buys more (less). But how does NGDP targeting compare to inflation targeting in facilitating the smooth operation of the economy? NGDP targeting expert George Selgin will be joining us to discuss. George Selgin is the director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute. He has written widely on the topics of monetary theory, monetary policy, and free banking. The reading for this week is a 2018 blog post by Selgin entitled "Some 'Serious' Theoretical Writings That Favor NGDP Targeting." It provides a nice jumping-off point for digging further into the topic. Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #84: Deflation BBI #88: Recessions BBI #131: Fiscal vs Monetary Policy Original YouTube Recording Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay…
 
How does basic income interact with the various programs that make up the welfare system? To what extent does basic income solve some of the same problems that the welfare programs are designed to solve? What does an effective welfare system and/or social safety net look like in a world with basic income? When does it make sense to adapt existing income support programs to more closely resemble basic income? Michael Lewis and Steve Nuñez join us to discuss. Michael is a professor at Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College. He has published widely on the topic of basic income and he was a co-founder of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) in 1999. Steve is the lead researcher on Guaranteed Income at the Jain Family Institute where he models and empirically investigates the social and economic effects of guaranteed income. The reading for this week is a recent white paper entitled "Reweaving the Safety Net: The Best Fit for Guaranteed Income" that Michael and Steve wrote with Sidhya Balakrishnan. Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #69: The BOOST Act BBI #99: Maricá BBI #118: Social Safety Net Original YouTube Recording Image by Jonathan Meyer on Noun Project…
 
In 2018, Oren Cass wrote a book called "The Once and Future Worker" in which he argues for creating labor market conditions that give everyone the opportunity to contribute to society as productive workers. This position is based on an assumption that he calls "The Working Hypothesis": "[A] labor market in which workers can support strong families and communities is the central determinant of long-term prosperity and should be the central focus of public policy." Why does Oren Cass believe this? To what extent is it true? Is basic income compatible with this goal? Does it need to be? Why do we think of workforce abandonment and government dependence as problems? Bethany Burum joins us to discuss. Bethany is a social psychologist and lecturer at Harvard University. She studies cultural evolution and uses game theory to explain the hidden incentives behind human social behavior. The reading this week is an essay in The American Interest entitled "The Working Hypothesis" by Oren Cass, which is adapted from his book. Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #102: Idleness and Leisure BBI #129: Workers vs Consumers BBI #132: Cultural Incentives Original YouTube Recording Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay…
 
To kick off 2021, we discuss basic income's effect on the agency of individual people to live their lives how they choose. We've previously talked about how basic income gives people the power to say no. Consenting power is the power to say yes. When society is structured such that people have no choice but to work a job, to what extent is this analogous to slavery? Can we say that basic income gives people more consenting power without also arguing that the absence of basic income reduces labor-market efficiency? The reading this week is a chapter from Henry George's Progress and Poverty : "The Enslavement of Laborers the Ultimate Result of Private Property in Land." Henry George said that whoever owned the land also effectively owned the people who lived on/from the land. But George also lived in a time when it was easier to draw a connection between land, labor, and the product of the economy. To what extent do his arguments still make sense today? In our modern world, what kinds of things serve as "land" in the Henry George sense? Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #78: Land Value Tax BBI #86: Thomas Paine BBI #116: Power to Say No Original YouTube Recording Image Source: Queen Mary Psalter…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
We often discuss the extent to which the economy needs labor to produce its output. But to what extent do people need to work jobs in order to live meaningful and fulfilling lives? Is it a coincidence that people happen to have a "need" to do the very thing that society expects of them? To what extent do cultural and economic incentives shape human psychology? Does it become a problem if the economy needs less labor? Is it a problem if basic income leaves some people jobless? How adaptable are psychology and culture to these kinds of changes? This clip from Downton Abbey suggests that norms around work are not universal. We have two featured guests joining us this week: Bethany Burum and Erez Yoeli. Bethany is a social psychologist and lecturer at Harvard University. Erez is an economist and director of the MIT Sloan School's Applied Cooperation Team. Together they study cultural evolution, explain hidden incentives, and use game theory to describe human social behavior. For optional reading, we have an April 2020 Guardian article by Lauren Aratani entitled, "Experts warn of mental health fallout from mass US unemployment." Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #56 — Workism BBI #102 — Idleness and Leisure BBI #116 — Power to Say No Image Credit: Pacheco et al. ( CC BY 2.5 )…
 
Fiscal policy is what we call government spending and taxation. Monetary policy is what we call it when the central bank participates in financial markets to influence private-sector lending and borrowing. So, where does our money come from? Does it come from the government (fiscal authority) or is it the central bank (monetary authority) that creates our dollars? How does basic income to fit in? Is it a form of fiscal policy or monetary policy? Can it be both? Is it neither? For optional reading this week, we have an article by Brent Schrotenboer in USA Today from May of this year entitled "US is 'printing' money to help save the economy from the COVID-19 crisis, but some wonder how far it can go." Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #46 — The Treasury and the Fed BBI #90 — Natural Rate of UBI BBI #117 — Sovereign Money Original YouTube Recording Image from QuoteInspector.com…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
Basic income adds new money to the economy for consumers to spend. And that money has to have somewhere to go. The first place it goes is toward the purchase of goods and services, but where will it end up? Two of the most common answers are savings and taxes. Even without basic income, the government is always adding new money to the economy. Where *has* it been ending up? For a long time, one part of the answer is that oil exporters sold oil for dollars and liked to accumulate Treasury debt. This so-called "petrodollar recycling" allowed the US to issue extra money thanks to the extra demand for Treasuries. But to what extent is this still true? For optional reading this week, we have a 2016 Bloomberg article by Andrea Wong entitled "The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia's 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret." Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #12 — The Nature of Money BBI #31 — Venezuela Crisis BBI #103 — Dutch Disease Original YouTube Recording Image by Pavel N., RU on Noun Project…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
Henry Ford famously insisted on paying his workers enough money to be able to buy the very cars they were producing. But to what extent does that make sense? When is it useful to think of workers and consumers as the same people? Does basic income create a disconnect between these two roles? Is that a problem? We have two optional readings this week. The first is a 2011 blog post by former labor secretary Robert Reich entitled "Stock Tip: Be Worried. Workers are Consumers" The second is a 2012 article on Big Think by David Berreby entitled "When Consumers Forget They're Also Workers, Everyone Suffers" Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #14 — Technological Unemployment BBI #33 — Basic Income vs Job Guarantee BBI #56 — Workism Original YouTube recording Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
At the turn of the 20th century, many of the world's currencies were pegged to gold. Gold was an international monetary standard. And then it wasn't. What happened? Was there something special about gold that led us to choose it as our standard money? Did something happen that caused gold to stop being special? Under what conditions is gold a useful form of money? Some people say that abandoning the gold standard gave us more flexibility to properly manage the stability of our economy. If that's true, why did we adopt a gold standard in the first place? What would basic income have looked like in a gold standard world? Is it possible to have an optimal basic income in the context of a gold standard? For optional reading this week, we have a 2019 Quartz article by Natasha Frost and Gwynn Guilford entitled, "The quiet campaign to reinstate the gold standard is getting louder." Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #12 — The Nature of Money BBI #26 — Cryptocurrency BBI #107 — Quantity Theory of Money Original YouTube recording Image by Peggy_Marco on Pixabay…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
What is the appropriate amount of basic income for a society? How do we figure it out? Under what conditions would it make sense to set the amount of the payout at a level that's high enough to cover people's basic needs? When is it appropriate for the amount to be lower than this subsistence level? What about higher? To what extent is it useful to try to determine a subsistence level in the first place? This week, we have two featured guests are joining us from the UK, hence the earlier 1pm EST (6pm GMT) timeslot. Barb Jacobson is a long-time welfare rights advisor and basic income advocate who is the coordinator of Basic Income UK and the former chair of Unconditional Basic Income Europe. Geoff Crocker is a researcher who studies the economics of basic income. His book "Basic Income and Sovereign Money" argues for basic income's increasing necessity in our changing economy. Here are Geoff's slides from the discussion. For optional reading this week, we have a 2018 New Yorker article by Nathan Heller entitled "Who Really Stands to Win from Universal Basic Income?" Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #61 — Mainstream Discourse BBI #80 — A Capitalist Road to Communism BBI #117 — Sovereign Money Original YouTube recording Image by Becris on flaticon…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
Neoliberalism is often portrayed as an enemy of the left. But self-proclaimed neoliberals might tell you that their goal is to harness the power of markets for the good of humanity. That doesn't sound so bad. Yet neoliberal ideology is often associated with a failure to promote human well-being. Could it be that something is missing in the neoliberal understanding of how to use markets to humanity's advantage? Could that something be basic income? As compared with classical liberalism, which advocated a hands-off approach to the markets, neoliberalism recognizes the role of government institutions in setting parameters and constraints within which the market operates. Some people worry that basic income is a neoliberal "Trojan Horse" designed to trick the left into embracing markets. The point of basic income is indeed to help the markets work for the benefit of the people. So it could certainly be argued that basic income is compatible with the spirit of neoliberalism. But is it really a trick? Is there actually anything nefarious going on? For optional listening this week, we have a short 2019 episode from NPR's Planet Money: Indicator Podcast entitled, "Who Is The Neoliberal Shill Of the Year?" Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #9: Inequality BBI #40: Socialism vs. Capitalism BBI #74: Say's Law Original YouTube recording Image from The Neoliberal Project…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
We often discuss how basic income might affect people's willigness or desire to work. That's the labor supply. Labor demand is the extent to which employers want to hire people in the first place. What does it mean for there to be "insufficient labor demand"? And how does basic income change things? On the one hand, basic income gives people money to buy the things that labor produces. On the other hand, we will, perhaps, be less interested in creating jobs as a way of getting people money. For optional reading this week, we have a 2018 policy proposal by Jared Bernstein entitled "The Importance of Strong Labor Demand," in which he suggests various measures to boost the demand for labor. Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included: BBI #21: The Labor Market BBI #33: Basic Income vs. Job Guarantee BBI #94: Full Employment Original YouTube recording Photo by Kevin McGuire on Flickr…
 
B
Boston Basic Income
Boston Basic Income podcast artwork
 
For our long-term survival and prosperity, we need to be careful about how we manage our resources. How does basic income fit into a plan for resource conservation? How can it help? How might it hurt? This week's session includes seven featured guests to discuss these questions. Kate McFarland is the associate director of the Center for Ethics and Human Values at The Ohio State University and the former editor of Basic Income News. Peter Barnes is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, and author who has written about citizens' dividends and the shared ownership of—and responsibility for—our natural resources. Deia Schlosberg is a filmmaker whose recent documentary, "The Story of Plastic," explores our plastic pollution crisis. Her upcoming "Bootstraps" docu-series examines the human impact of basic income. Derek Van Gorder is a filmmaker, YouTuber, and frequent Boston Basic Income participant. His work explores Consumer Monetary Theory and the philosophy and economics of basic income. Diane Pagen is a social worker and long-time basic income activist. She organized last year's Basic Income March in New York City, which inspired marches in 29 other cities. Conrad Shaw is a UBI researcher, writer, and creator of the UBI calculator. He is also co-producer on Deia Schlosberg's forthcoming "Bootstraps" docu-series. Michael Howard is a philosophy professor, president of USBIG, and co-editor of the "Basic Income Studies" journal. To help frame our discussion, we have a short article and video. The article is by Michael Howard from 2012 in which he argues for a carbon cap and dividend as a step toward basic income. https://scholars.org/contribution/cap-carbon-emissions-and-pay-dividends-citizens-strategy-unite-americans-against The video is 20-minute edit by Derek Van Gorder of Alex Howlett describing the concept of a "natural rate" of basic income. https://youtu.be/lTwim8TK_cg Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included https://youtu.be/tVWfInD2jLk — BBI #16: Climate and the Environment https://youtu.be/lOLmz2rebDg — BBI #30: Population Growth https://youtu.be/TBO4G_nfBuc — BBI #41: Economic Growth Image by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/sustainability-energy-tree-3295757/)…
 
Loading …

Bun venit la Player FM!

Player FM scanează web-ul pentru podcast-uri de înaltă calitate pentru a vă putea bucura acum. Este cea mai bună aplicație pentru podcast și funcționează pe Android, iPhone și pe web. Înscrieți-vă pentru a sincroniza abonamentele pe toate dispozitivele.

 

Ghid rapid de referință

Listen to this show while you explore
Play