<
https://www.scottsantens.com/the-gift-giving-argument-for-universal-basic-income-ubi-christmas-birthday-giving/>
"As I write this, Christmas is right around the corner again, and I think it's
time I finally write this article that has been in my head for years now as an
argument for the universal part of universal basic income. In short, the entire
point of the gift-giving aspect of Christmas and birthdays and other occasions
involving gifts would be entirely defeated using the logic people use against
UBI. People often ask, "Why should we provide basic income only to tax it back
from people?" The answer which I will explain here, is that there is importance
in both the giving and receiving, even if not considered as efficient from an
economist's perspective. There's ultimately something about the human tradition
of gift-giving itself that I think says something about why universal basic
income should be truly universal.
First, as I've written about previously, cash is like water in that it can take
any shape. Because it can be anything, when it comes to gifts, it's very tough
to beat, unless the intended gift recipient told you exactly what they want, or
you know them well enough to give them something they may not even know they
even wanted. Economists like to speak about this in terms of "utility" which is
really just perceived usefulness.
An economist by the name of Joel Waldfogel formalized this decades ago in his
paper "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas", concluding that Christmas presents
had a deadweight loss of somewhere between 10% and 33%, meaning that so many
people receive stuff they don't want, that up to a third of all Christmas
gift-giving is essentially pointless. Basically, if you get a $100 sweater you
never wear, whoever gave it to you basically just burned $100. Meanwhile
someone else may have worn the hell out of that sweater, but they can't because
it's sitting in your closet."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
