Internally the US has free movement of both labor and capital, so any single state trying broad social programs without federal support will run into free rider and arbitrage problems pretty quickly. Since the US can control its border and currency, it’s less likely to be a problem if it’s a national program.
Some types of growth, yea that's the theory. But I don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present. If every single person who doesn't want to work shows up to your state, you won't be able to keep UBI running.
> Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile.
Capital yes. Labor ... not really? Even historically immigrating to the US is kinda difficult. Immigrating into any developed country is hard.
> If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it.
No it's not even NK. It's socialism but no central planning. NK (and really any prior long running example of socialism in US history) doesn't do free market do decide e.g. who picks up the trash.
So it could well be that UBI works, but a lot of grunge jobs just don't get done. Maybe people are happier and have more free time, but there's fewer janitors so things are dirtier, and a much higher percentage of money goes towards paying people to farm so good is way more expensive.
Things definitely wouldn't be the same as they are now, even if it did hypothetically work.
> Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run.
There could easily be things that break it at the state level (especially, freedom of movement of people), that don't apply federally.
It might also fail at a federal level, but you can't claim there aren't major differences between a single state UBI and a federal UBI
> don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present
Then you need to define categories of good and bad people. And explain why the former will stay (or continue to immigrate). In the long run, borders are porous. If it doesn’t work at the state level, and it doesn’t cause inflation, I’m deeply sceptical about the claim that it doesn’t require categorising by productivity.
It's definitely more porous going out. So yeah, UBI needs to be not so bad that people can do better elsewhere that's easy enough to immigrate into. The same is true of basically any policy though, that's not really a unique thing to UBI.
That's true, although there's a pretty strong overlap of UBI proponents and supporters of pro-immigration policies.
If you want to say, "Of course UBI can't work if we allow whoever wants it to move here and receive it," I agree, but that's often not a qualifier made by proponents.
The fed does have the ability to control monetary policy.
This is akin to why some problems in the EU - individual countries gave up monetary policy rights, which means they have to do what Germany wants w.r.t. the euro. They can't control interest rates like the US Fed can, can't expand or contract money supply, and have fewer tools to deal with problems that arise.
Imagine if NYC couldn't build buildings over 1 story because of a state law. That would complicate adding new residents. It might work for awhile and they could get creative, but eventually it would become untenable.
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This is not all to say that there aren't any problems with UBI specifically. We haven't really tested that level of socialism anywhere with still trying to also do free market and no planned economy.
It could well be that a lot of stuff wouldn't get done, or at least not done as much. There's a lot of shit jobs that are done for cheaper now because people gotta eat & put a roof over their head.
Unless you do a U"B"I solution which isn't actually covering the basics, but is lower than necessary.
> you could also ask the uberwealthy to pony up instead
Then you don’t need monetary policy. Saying it cannot happen at the state or local level is basically admitting it isn’t solvent or requires a population filter to keep the wasteful people out.
I was curious what your answer was? What argument was refuted? I explained clearly why the program needed to be national and not at the state level. Good grief.
Your argument rests on mobility of capital and people being less federally than statewise. At both levels, that becomes less true as income goes up. And it virtually disappears in the long run. If the argument for UBI is that it must be federal because of monetary or mobility reasons, it’s either reliant on causing inflation or locking down the population à la North Korea.
Ah, ok, finally! You made an argument clear enough to respond to. I think your point is ridiculous! There is an entire range of possibilities between total global freedom for capital and North Korea.
First, North Korea is a bad example, because I'm certain that Kim Jong-Un and his key cogs are able to stash their cash in London, New York and Geneva like all good autocrats and oligarchs do. The average North Korean lives in poverty by western standards, why would they need capital mobility?
Second, the US had capital controls in place throughout the New Deal Era, surely you aren't comparing regulated capitalism with socialist qualities with a statist monarchy that impoverishes its' people?
> the US had capital controls in place throughout the New Deal Era, surely you aren't comparing regulated capitalism with socialist qualities with a statist monarchy that impoverishes its' people?
Sure, if you say we need capital controls and exit visas to implement UBI, that is consistent with breaking continuity between state and local experiments and the federal proposal. But I’m not sure how much buy in there is for those policies.
> North Korea is a bad example, because I'm certain that Kim Jong-Un and his key cogs are able to stash their cash in London, New York and Geneva
And American oligarchs wouldn’t?
> You made an argument clear enough to respond to
Isn’t it presumptive to use one’s own ignorance as an argument?
Please: show us the way. I'll be the first to congratulate you on a long-term sustainable UBI implementation.