All good arguments in favor. What are the complexities? I'd start with two: How much might this cost? How much would it compete with firms in the for-profit sector?
1) I think it's worth decomposing this into a OMB-style budget scoring question and effects-on-the-overall-economy question. In both cases, I don't have a better answer than "it depends," but I can try to say a bit about what it depends on.
In terms of budget scoring, this depends on (1) how many people opt in at any given point, and (2) what proportion of work goes towards generating revenues vs. producing public goods (which obviously relates to your second question.) If the number of people who opt in at any point is no greater than the current unemployment rate, and the proportion (public goods to revenue-generating) is similar to the overall economy, then it's pretty small. Increase the public goods portion and those working long-term and it increases (although it's probably best to think of long-term employees producing public goods as part of the normal public sector, which is otherwise accounted for.)
As far as overall feasibility, this depends on effects on productivity. I would expect universal basic jobs to be lower productivity cet part due to weaker labor discipline (which would also affect the rest of the economy per reason #1 above), due to selection effects (which would raise productivity in the rest of the economy per retained worker,) and due to higher turnover if they're returning to the "normal" economy quickly (though in that case they're mostly displacing otherwise nonemployed workers, who have productivity of zero.) Many of the reasons above consist of miscellaneous reasons why you'd expect some long-run improvements (e.g., skills development.) Because this increases stability and freedom I'm willing to pay a cost in growth rates for it - the purpose of an economy is TO provide stability and freedom to people - but whether it raises or lowers growth overall is unclear, and probably we'd have institutional improvements and lessons to learn in implementation over the near future of doing this. Good question to pursue both by economists looking in theory and policymakers testing it out.
2) That's a pretty political question that different factions would debate, but as far as private goods production by the state, I think the best area to target is production of commodities at scale. Here you're targeting what bureaucracies do best, and taking advantage of economies of scale without the normal deadweight losses that attend monopolies. Highly differentiated goods are more likely to benefit from cooperatives and the like.
Thanks. I think you'd be interested to look at the work of Gene Steuerle, at https://governmentwedeserve.substack.com/. You seem to have a bit of philosophy in common.
In the not-too-distant-future, we are likely to be at risk of massive unemployment due to AI and related systems making human workers less valuable. We will need ideas like this today to prepare for another economic reality tomorrow.
All good arguments in favor. What are the complexities? I'd start with two: How much might this cost? How much would it compete with firms in the for-profit sector?
Good questions!
1) I think it's worth decomposing this into a OMB-style budget scoring question and effects-on-the-overall-economy question. In both cases, I don't have a better answer than "it depends," but I can try to say a bit about what it depends on.
In terms of budget scoring, this depends on (1) how many people opt in at any given point, and (2) what proportion of work goes towards generating revenues vs. producing public goods (which obviously relates to your second question.) If the number of people who opt in at any point is no greater than the current unemployment rate, and the proportion (public goods to revenue-generating) is similar to the overall economy, then it's pretty small. Increase the public goods portion and those working long-term and it increases (although it's probably best to think of long-term employees producing public goods as part of the normal public sector, which is otherwise accounted for.)
As far as overall feasibility, this depends on effects on productivity. I would expect universal basic jobs to be lower productivity cet part due to weaker labor discipline (which would also affect the rest of the economy per reason #1 above), due to selection effects (which would raise productivity in the rest of the economy per retained worker,) and due to higher turnover if they're returning to the "normal" economy quickly (though in that case they're mostly displacing otherwise nonemployed workers, who have productivity of zero.) Many of the reasons above consist of miscellaneous reasons why you'd expect some long-run improvements (e.g., skills development.) Because this increases stability and freedom I'm willing to pay a cost in growth rates for it - the purpose of an economy is TO provide stability and freedom to people - but whether it raises or lowers growth overall is unclear, and probably we'd have institutional improvements and lessons to learn in implementation over the near future of doing this. Good question to pursue both by economists looking in theory and policymakers testing it out.
2) That's a pretty political question that different factions would debate, but as far as private goods production by the state, I think the best area to target is production of commodities at scale. Here you're targeting what bureaucracies do best, and taking advantage of economies of scale without the normal deadweight losses that attend monopolies. Highly differentiated goods are more likely to benefit from cooperatives and the like.
Thanks. I think you'd be interested to look at the work of Gene Steuerle, at https://governmentwedeserve.substack.com/. You seem to have a bit of philosophy in common.
In the not-too-distant-future, we are likely to be at risk of massive unemployment due to AI and related systems making human workers less valuable. We will need ideas like this today to prepare for another economic reality tomorrow.