Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…There’s various debates as to whether there should be some absolute floor or whether we should preserve the property that some level of work is required in order for there to be any income, more along the lines of the earned income credit. Do you think that matters? I think the symbolic values of society rewards matter a great deal, more than I thought. If you have a universal basic income, it’s like you’re putting up a sign for immigrants, “This is the kind of country we are.” For me, selection of immigrants is very important. We don’t think about it enough. By having a lot of inequality, you’re putting up another kind of sign for immigrants: “Life here is tough. And if you live here, well, tough is tough.” But on the other hand, you’re building a stronger cluster of creativity and a stronger group. And it might be better to have the signs without UBI, less transparency about how you help people, and a variety of ethics that on the face are not entirely defensible. But when you view them as an advertising campaign for your immigrant-rich country, with more to come, you’re getting more productive people who will also help the rest of the world more. Keep in mind, US generates public goods for the whole world, just like Stripe and Atlas do, so you’re never optimizing for “What’s best for this country?” You want to optimize for “What makes this country the most creative?” And that’s different than just making us happy. We’re doomed to be the somewhat screwed up, unjust, not-quite-happy-maybe-more-mentally-ill country. And we’re the Atlas, in some other sense, partly carrying some of the world on our shoulders. I’m glad we’re recording this so we can later put forward that conception of America.…

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