Basic Income proposal in India. Is it worth trying?

[james03]

Yeah, but the same could be said of Christianity in terms of feudalism; that God "places us" in these specific social classes for a specific reason of His Glory and we should accept the roles which we are given.

"If allah wills it."  is the same thing.  But I am not aware of Christianity preaching we should "accept" the role, etc....  Back before electricity, books, etc.... feudalism was probably a great system.  It was only the use of large quantities of coal that allowed the population to be educated, and to allow them to massively increase their productivity that changed that.

I believe it was Augustine (correct me if I'm wrong) who said "work like it all depends on you, but pray because it all depends on God".  You also have to avoid the sin of presumption.  Anyhow, don't "accept" anything.  It is more likely God is putting you in a bad situation as a way to develop you.  We are sharpened by adversity and struggle.  Even failure should be looked upon as learning something.

[james03]

Thoughts from people here? Will it work in India, and is it worth trying in other countries as well?

Will it "work" in India?  No.  In order to pay out the money, they have to get the money.  So they will be stealing money from the producers to give to poor people.  We're talking a Billion people.  So if you pay out $3/day, that's $90 BILLION per month that is being robbed from your producers.  India needs producers, so you are doing the opposite of what is needed.  India needs capital formation and capital accumulation.  Their main problem is corruption and their caste system.

On effects, look at the effects of SNAP, WIC, public schools, and medicaid, just to name a few of the programs.  Massive debt and a zombie class.

As a move to improve efficiency, it has some merit.  Switch to that, close down all other socialist transfer payment schemes, and fire about 2 million government leeches on the State and Federal level.  That would be of benefit.

Funding is the problem.  One area that I'd support is in the distribution of national income such as royalties (as mentioned previously).  Take all the oil, gas, and mining royalties that come from Federal and State lands and just give it to people.  I'd deposit it in an IRA type program that you can't touch until you are 62.  Also, it's yours, so you can pass on any remaining funds to your kids after you die.

Finally there is the marxist philosophy involved, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".  If that is your philosophy, then a single man working a hard job should receive less than a single mother with 5 kids from 6 men.  In fact, the more kids she has, the more money she should make.

Relief of the poor resides with the Church.

RR on socialism in general.  Prophetic.

15. And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the levelling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation.

[Xavier]

Thanks, Mike. The really sustainable and great way to do it would be through Social Credit. Abolishing fractional reserve central banking, instituting a strict equivalence between basic money supply and GDP in the economy, and then instituting a national dividend after that.

But leaving that aside, I think this is a great proposal, I supported it when Dr. Arvind Subramanian's earlier pilot study came out, and I agree with economist P. Chidambaram's calculations below - I will go further and say if what is now called QURBI [a basic income provided to about 20% of the poorest, or about 200 Million People of about 1500 Rs/Month, which comes to about 3.6 trillion Rs per year - a fraction of India's GDP] is implemented in India before 2020 end, it is a very good attempt to end poverty and imho will almost certainly spell the end of at least extreme poverty (please read the second link in the OP, and you will see about 50 million people still live with under $1.9 a day, or about 50000 Rs a year. In dollar terms, that's less than 60 a month and 720 a year. Meanwhile, India's GDP is around 2.6 trillion in dollars, or about 182 trillion in Rupees. 1.5% of GDP is enough for a dividend reaching 20% of people.) within 5 to 10 years. It also encourages every one to work harder and increase the national economy, and it will be good imo for every country to adopt similar schemes, of course carefully adapted and tailored to the needs of their own citizens. I work as a finance consultant and we never propose the same solution to everybody. Similar principles have vastly different applications. Specific situations call for unique resolutions. But I know India well and this is an excellent proposal for India imo. I hope it goes ahead.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/expert-view/india-can-afford-to-set-apart-1-5-of-the-gdp-to-ensure-that-nobody-is-too-poor-chidambaram/articleshow/67738133.cms

You believe this is fiscally possible. You believe there is fiscal room to bring about a programme as ambitious as this. Is that what we are hearing from someone who has been fiscally extremely prudent in his tenure at North Block?

Yes. We have done our calculations, others have done it too. For example, Dr Arvind Subramanian has made some calculations and he has indicated that we may require at the most the outer limits may be about 1.5% of GDP and I ask myself can this and I ask myself can this country not afford to set apart 1.5% of the GDP to ensure that nobody is so poor that he and his family cannot afford to buy food, cannot afford to buy clothes, cannot have a shelter over their heads?

As a nation we must resolve that 70 years after independence, if a section of the are very, very poor -- it could be 20% or 18% -- we must set apart enough resources to wipe out poverty. Given the size of our GDP, that is eminently doable. I am sure that when we when we do the fine calculations, we will be able to find the resources to fund this scheme ...

There are different estimates of poverty and the government has announced that in June, there will be fresh estimates of poverty. Let us assume that the poverty line is about 20% or 18% of 22%, roughly about one-fifth of India. We should be able to find the resources to lift them to a level where they can say we have enough food on the table, we have enough clothes to wear, we have a shelter over our head. I have given you one estimate made by Dr Arvind Subramanian. Other estimates have also been made. We will start with the poorest and we will go up. I think it is doable and it is not inconsistent with fiscal prudence. It is eminently manageable, consistent with fiscal discipline.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/expert-view/india-can-afford-to-set-apart-1-5-of-the-gdp-to-ensure-that-nobody-is-too-poor-chidambaram/articleshow/67738133.cms

Relief of the poor resides with the Church.

Yes. And Mother Theresa worked for that relief for many years, and did a good job. Thanks to her order like the Missionaries of Charity and other similar charitable activities carried on by the Church in India, many educated Hindus - there are some rare fanatics of course - have a positive view of the Church and Her work. But this goes beyond that, and is an economic vision for more widely sharing ownership.

Social Credit as explained in Mike's link is a distributist vision where the fruits of production are more evenly shared, and work itself and increased production is the principal means to alleviate and better the lot of the less fortunate - a vision very much in accord, as even Bishops have noted, and even informed by, Rerum Novarum. Some have proposed something like a "basic share" and that's also a good idea.

"46. If a workman's wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of income. Nature itself would urge him to this. We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.

47. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided. For, the result of civil change and revolution has been to divide cities into two classes separated by a wide chasm. On the one side there is the party which holds power because it holds wealth; which has in its grasp the whole of labor and trade; which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is not without influence even in the administration of the commonwealth. On the other side there is the needy and powerless multitude, sick and sore in spirit and ever ready for disturbance. If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the community is self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life."

A policy of a basic income for about 20% tied to increase of GDP, for the working poor of India - many of whom are poor, laboring farmers who scarcely have the basic necessities of life - is something very much in accord with that. Those in the other 80% can very well make a little allowance and the small sacrifices that make that possible. The same for other countries when imo this will be more widely implemented. Let's see.

[mikemac]

Yeah I hope they go ahead with it in India too.  If they show that it can work in the largest democracy in the world then it can work in any country.

[Gardener]

...

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

- Rudyard Kipling