Universal Basic Income

Here's an argument for Guaranteed Minimum Income from the "right", none other than the high priest of neoliberalism, Milton Friedman (he calls it Negative Income Tax):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

This underlines that like copyright reform, free code softare, and open source development, the concept of UBI/GBI can unite libertarians traditionally divided along "left"/"right" lines. If, as @andrewreitemeyer says, we campaign on the concept of UBI/GBI, rather than getting bogged down in a specific proposal at this stage, we can join/ facilitate a broad public debate, to democratically find a specific UBI/GBI proposal the majority will support.

With the exception of our libertarian troll from Epsom, we are all in favour of ubi gbi as a process. The only controversial topic has ever been my tax proposal to fund it, as most do not have the dedication to make treasury figures work.

It can be done, and I already have the proposed figures.
Let's take this stand for a decent society.

An example of the growing support for UBI:
http://werewolf.co.nz/2015/05/in-the-city-of-the-precariat/

There is a growing impetus in some parts of the world to provide everyone with a fixed sum of money that would enable them, either as individuals or households, to address basic needs such as food and housing. This proposal for a Universal Basic Income has support among people across the political spectrum. Forty-six percent of Canadians support the idea of a UBI and the people of Switzerland will vote next year on a proposal to implement it in that country.

Evaluated trials in India with 6,000 men, women, and children have delivered positive results “the simple fact is that people with basic security work harder and more productively, not less.”

This approach has historical precedent stretching back to the days before neoliberalism colonized collective thinking. Martin Luther King, Milton Freidman, John Kenneth Galbraith have all supported versions of the idea. Richard Nixon proposed it in 1969. It passed through the House easily but stalled in the Senate. <<

Also:
http://werewolf.co.nz/2015/05/down-the-up-ladder/

The problem is not sophisticated machines – it’s about whose interests are served by the people who finance their development. Or as Guardian correspondent Hannah Devlin puts it, “Given that we’re bound to lose this race against the machine, isn’t it time we began thinking of how we might harness it to improve the quality of our lives, rather than merely enrich the corporations that own it?” <<

If machines are on the cusp of doing most of our work, and both hardware and software have already replaced thousands (if not missions) of jobs that used to be done by humans, it makes sense to start decoupling income from work.

We should be seeking to cooperate with others in bringing UBI to national attention. Tighter cooperation with The New Economics Movement would be a good start.

Finland is doing it!

Pointless bringing up Milton Friedman, as nobody here in this thread is proposing what he was saying. As NOBODY in this thread is supporting his form of the proposal.

Which was $300/year to replace ALL other forms of welfare.

Nope, everybody here would be seeking vastly higher figures.

Only person here who might just perhaps maybe support this, would be myself. As theoretically it would at least be an improvement over the current system (although still not optimal). But on the flip side, I believe in the long run it would cause far too much damage as it grows and expands (and even in the short term it would do a vast amount of damage by giving the appearance of lending support to crazy ideas put forward by others).

Have a read of this:
https://mises.org/library/fallacies-negative-income-taxa

It is not as if Milton Friedman invented the idea in the first place. And the link is broken btw. - negative income tax is not the same as UBI in anycase

I referenced Friedman simply to point out that a redistributive system to guarantee a minimum income (and consumer purchasing power) can be compatible with neo-liberal ideology. Of course a system proposed now, for Aotearoa, would be different to what Friedman proposed then, for the US.

From the link that @hubat mentioned, the Finnish announcement:

marks the first commitment from a European country to implement a Basic Income experiment and will be the first experiment in a developed nation since the 1970s. Other experiments have been performed more recently in India, Namibia and Brazil. Every experiment so far has reported very positive results with improved economic performance, health, housing and other outcomes.

BTW Here's a TEDx Talk on UBI by Karl Widerquist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7_4yQRCYHE

I've started a cross-party working group on UBI (as a subgroup of the Aotearoa General Assembly Loomio group), for anyone keen to get involved in campaign for some form of UBI:
https://www.loomio.org/g/jVxUqCeK/aotearoa-general-assembly-online-working-group-basic-income

I like the concept of UBI. The implications for tertiary education alone make it attractive to me.

Some of the articles I have read where they are giving housing to the homeless in the US without hurdles like maintaining drug or alcohol free status with very positive results IE recipients having a large degree of success becoming alcohol and drug free. Seem to have some parallels to UBI.

David mentions the danger of unlimited growth of such a scheme. I think this could balance out the unlimited growth of the bureaucracy of our current welfare state. ACC is a classic example of an out of control bureaucracy that could be tempered by having a UBI.