Jamie Alvarado

@jamieal

Saying basic income is socialism is as absurd as saying money is socialism. It’s money. It’s all it is. What do people do with the money? They use it in markets. In other words, basic income is fuel for markets. 

Markets are a wonderful invention that serves to calculate via a massively distributed computer comprised of people, what goods and services should be made, using what, going where, by whom, of what quantity, etc. It’s an incredible act of decentralization built upon supply and demand signaling.

• All work can be divided into four types: routine and nonroutine, cognitive and manual. 
• Routine work is the same stuff day in and day out, while nonroutine work varies. Within these two varieties, is the work that requires mostly our brains (cognitive) and the work that requires mostly our bodies (manual). 
• Where once all four types saw growth, the stuff that is routine stagnated back in 1990. This happened because routine labor is the easiest for technology to shoulder. Rules can be written for work that doesn’t change, and that work can be better handled by machines.

First mentioned in the 18th century by Scottish philosopher David Hume, utilitarianism is a moral doctrine that is increasingly influential in recent times.

• Utilitarianism is not based on utility, but the intrinsic value of something based on pleasure or happiness, or both.
• A screwdriver has an instrumental value, as it is useful while doing carpentry or repair work, but it does not provide any pleasure or happiness.
• A red rose provides both pleasure and happiness, which is why it has an intrinsic value.