I don’t know how relevant this is now, but here’s a link to another post where I expressed my thoughts on what kind of pitfalls you might most likely face – https://lemmy.world/post/36867409
By the way, what is this phenomenon on Lemmy? Let’s say people are reluctant to read and comment on old posts published just a couple of days or a week ago, but with new ones, it’s a completely different story. What kind of psychology is this? Or it seemed to me?
What you described in your other post is slavery masked as UBI. It’s like how Trump’s right wing talk about “freedom” when what they actually mean is nothing like the freedom people actually want or imagine.
Salaried work is effectively gilded slavery. Unless you’ve got ahitloads of capital, money is basically already limiting you to a certain bracket of “freedom” that we call your “means”, and it’s under the duress of poverty and death. The rules, particularly laws, apply a lot more strongly to those who are poor than who are rich. Interest punishes poorer borrowers and rewards those who can barrow with impunity by giving them access to endless credit.
A true UBI is essentially unconditional access to the bare necessities of life. Food, shelter, healthcare, security, and public utilities. Doesn’t matter if you never work a day in your life - you are valued because you exist. It should grant those who do not want to work a means to live with dignity, and those who do want to work a secure launch pad for finding a vocation that is right for them.
The claims this would lead to lack of incentives to work is misleading. The psychological reality is well l-raised mentally healthy people who are valued as members of a community wish to serve that community however they can, and don’t want to feel like “free loaders”. They want to be seen to be contributing and making a difference. Not to be thought of as lazy or useless. We’re social creatures and we have an instinct for living in a society. It’s why we’re here now after hundreds of thousands of years.
But, would we want to do dangerous, dirty, unfulfilling and undignified work, for shitty pay? Who will sign up to clean toilets, sweep roads, carry worksite debris to the skip, stand behind the till at the gas station or convenience store 8+ hours a day, answer hundreds of phone calls a day just to give people information they can find online? Obviously, where we can’t automate, or otherwise relieve people of the need to do this kind of work, and many hands will not make light work of the situation (e.g. instead of having janitors let’s some percentage of the office staff clean up during the last hour of the day, like how we take turns doing the dishes at home), and we actually need sufficient people doing this kind of work full tim, then clearly these jobs need to have rewards sufficient to have people sign up to them. There won’t be a need for as many as their are nowz and those who do sign up will be more efficient for the fact they’re there of their own Accord and can quit any time they want.
It will be a real challenge to transition to this kind of incentive structure under the current incentives of capitalism (not to many how fucked up it makes people’s mental health and moral sentiment towards “the other” as competitors rather than collaborators), and ultimately monetary economics will probably need a significant overhaul and it may not even necessary in the long run. There may be better ways to distribute resources that still has mechanisms for rewarding hard work and determination, unique talent or passion, risk taking, etc. to a degree that nobody will resent such people for their success.
But the way I see it, this is what progress looks like. It’s working toward this kind of world that should drive our social and political engagements. I want you to be free - truly free - to life your best life. And not so that your doing means others have to be enslaved. That should make you miserable at every moment.
I don’t trust UBI because I don’t trust the average person to manage their free time and money carefully. This just feels like a road to boredom, followed by doing stupid shit, including drugs.
Anyone who have taken a month+ old vacation probably knows what I’m talking about. There comes a point where you just (unintentionally) start degrading yourself because there is no purpose in your life, whether by playing videogames all day or substance abuse
It’s even worse when you realize most homeless have psychological or physical problems that made them homeless in the first place, and throwing money at them is likely not going to extend their lives if you know what I meant, or fix said problems.
Except studies consistently show UBI counterintuitively incentivizes those on it to work: ‘Finland is the only country to have carried out a nationwide, randomised control trial of UBI. The evaluation found that people receiving basic income were more likely to be in work than those in the control group.’
Also, having a secure financial footing is remarkably effective at alleviating mental health issues and promoting overall wellbeing, leading to more people in the workforce and more people contributing to the economy (ideally, this would benefit everyone but, you know, Neoliberalism…).
Bit of a knee jerk reaction, my man.
Finland. Lol. I live next to it, you gotta understand that the people have a vastly different mindset than in many other places. Hence it being the happiest country on earth. You also gotta understand that people who are using lemmy are likely not the risk people, but everyone loves to base reality on their own subjectivity.
Repeat the same experiment in some poorer US state.
So your take is: let’s throw all those other studies from other countries in the bin then, because it clearly just comes down to ‘mindset’. Wat
No, but when drug abuse is not a problem in the first place, UBI should not make it a thing. Use your common sense. I’m talking about places where you see entire sidewalks stretching miles long with drug addicts. Do you honestly believe giving them money will make them go “oh, drugs bad, maybe I should work”… wat indeed.
I think The Expanse had a decent “UBI” model, Basic
It covers just enough food-like substance with the correct macros for a human, everyone had an apartment and access to the internet and tv channels. I think healthcare was included to a point. That’s it. You could survive on it without much suffering.
If you wanted more, you had to go to school and work.
It’s been a while, so forgive me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t a big part of that Universe the droves of people on Earth that couldn’t afford to survive or house themselves even with UBI?
They did survive, but it was kinda miserable, because you had zero budget for anything except watching ad-infested TV.
Then how did Bobby meet those homeless people on earth?
I said in a comment “hey why not universal healthcare and also ubi” and this nutcase yelled at me for over a week about it. I wasn’t going to bother with defending the idea since I was just asking “why not” and they were calling me lazy, entitled, and stupid.
Well, these are tense times, so people can be extremely aggressive, but if a collapse happens… Oh, people would become barbarians.
Oh, people would become barbarians.
The billionaire class has already hired a barbarian horde of ICE Agents to bang at our gates.
In a serious economic collapse, circa 2008, we’re going to see what happens when those barbarians can’t extract their tribute.
Broadly speaking, UBI is a good idea for a bad system.
Public housing, public health care, public grocery stores, public transit, and public education are a good idea for a better system.
The government giving you a fixed stipend to play your hand at the free market carries a whole host of secondary challenges, particularly as we enter a 70s-era inflationary spiral. The private sector having an incentive to create tiered levels of service to capture UBI money while delivering the smallest possible economic benefit to the consumer is a huge problem in the existing market.
The fundamental problem with UBI is that landlords will still evict your ass as soon as they find a way to squeeze more rent out of a unit. You have money, but you don’t have any kind of civil right to housing.
As an initial stopgap on the way to a socialist economic model, its got merit. But as a panacea, it - much like minimum wage and child tax credits and other forms of government mandated economic floors - fall depressingly short of the end goal.
As an initial stopgap on the way to a socialist economic model, its got merit
the way i think of it is that ubi is a bandaid solution. it’s not perfect but you still need to apply it, otherwise you bleed out and die before you have a chance of reaching a proper hospital.
The government really needs to either implement rent controls or buy up many of the private apartments to turn into public housing. It really doesn’t make a ton of sense for the product being leased for profit to be … property? In what world does it make sense for where you live to be a for-profit venture for someone else? Nah, the government could own it and rent out units at more reasonable rates/subsidizing the costs.
UBI is still great imo, but it’s not the end step like you said. We should have Universal Healthcare and public transit as well. I feel that UBI could pay for groceries, but grocery stores/food producers should have more regulations on the fillers and junk they put into these ‘food’ items they sell. I believe education K thru College should be free. It just makes sense for society to subsidize the education costs for the people that will help create value to our economy through their higher education.
The government really needs to either implement rent controls or buy up many of the private apartments to turn into public housing.
queuing up The Internationale
UBI is still great imo, but it’s not the end step like you said.
It’s a Market Socialist band-aid for what is - at its heart - a problem of rent-seeking and logistics.
I do think it’s possible at the state level to have the government step in to have a more hands on role for real estate among other things. Federally I think that’s a long shot, unless other states see how successful the progressive programs are in Blue states.
I don’t disagree that UBI is in many ways a band-aid. I see it as not too complex for your average person to understand though. The rent problem to me is one that needs to be tackled at the same time that UBI gets implemented.
People still get their freedom of spending their UBI as they desire, although some of their existing expenses could be deducted before they receive UBI payment (e.g., child care payments). From a policy selling perspective UBI looks very attractive, especially when you start receiving payments of it for a while. So much so that people would not stand it going away.
So if you’re working and get a UBI on top of your pay, then you have more money to invest in better versions of the things you have. If you’re living on the street, suddenly you have a government that cares about helping you to get off the ground and help put food on your table.
I don’t think specific help programs should go away mind you; I hear that sometimes but I disagree with that perspective. Maybe some of the UBI could be in a currency that’s only spendable on food (like food stamps), so in those rare cases the money potentially still goes to buying food.
People still get their freedom of spending their UBI as they desire, although some of their existing expenses could be deducted before they receive UBI payment (e.g., child care payments). From a policy selling perspective UBI looks very attractive, especially when you start receiving payments of it for a while. So much so that people would not stand it going away.
Oh, absolutely. Look at the success of Social Security.
I don’t think specific help programs should go away mind you; I hear that sometimes but I disagree with that perspective.
The libertarian pitch for “negative income tax” typically boils down to “if people just have cash in hand then the market will provide”. There’s never any real introspection into how markets work in practice or why certain neighborhoods are flush with amenities while others are barren.
Maybe some of the UBI could be in a currency that’s only spendable on food (like food stamps), so in those rare cases the money potentially still goes to buying food.
I would rather simply have state-run food pantries with staples provided at-cost. You get a UBI check. You have a public grocer/kitchen with affordable foodstuffs. Most adults can take it from there.
Anyone who isn’t able to properly maintain a household on those terms will likely need more real physical social assistance than an incentivized cash-substitute program can provide.
Funny how UBI is typically considered a left-wing policy in the US, yet the only place in the country that actually has a UBI is traditionally considered pretty conservative.
Alaska has a thing called the Alaska Permanent Fund which was funded with an initial investment of oil and mining revenue. It pays out around $100 a month which is not really something to live on but definitely helps for struggling Alaskans.
I think a viable model for UBIs on a national scale would probably involve something similar. Perhaps a one-shot tax on the mega-rich to get the initial funding and then it’s used to run a state-owned investment portfolio which invests in various sectors of the economy and then pays out the profits to the citizens.
Just a little clarification on the Alaspa PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend), it’s not paid monthly, but rather annually, and the amount it pays out changes from year to year depending on oil revenue for that year, which is where the fund comes from in the first place. This year it’s only $1000. For an idea of amounts, in 2020 it was only $992 (Covid just ruined everything everywhere) while in 2022 it was as high as $3,284.
It is still basically UBI though, even if the amount per year isn’t even enough to entirely offset the added expense of living in Alaska.
Organized (left or right) politics don’t support UBI because UBI redistributes power, and a power concentrating answer to any oppression complaint is to switch the balance of supremacism. Neocon/Zionist first rule in USA needs you to be miserable to be distracted from war and Israel budgets by gaslighting. CIA determined rule in other democracies is to make you miserable and destabilized, so that your puppets can give more tribute to US and its corporate champions.
As specific examples, leftist EU parties are still pro Trump/NATO and the collapsing austerity requirements of 5% of GDP for US weapons. In NY State, a DEM governor proposal to offer universal healthcare (same general justification as UBI) was rejected by union leaders because healthcare misery is a union recruiting/power imbalance.
Hate, misery, and crime are features that right wing needs for fascism, but left politicians can do quite well as controlled opposition, and get their share of oligarchy trickle down. Fighting the right on bandaid programs to create a new/bigger hierarchy, rewarding left supporters, is reward for fighting political war on left’s side.
UBI can be done at the state level too, but states may have to go into debt to get it going. Blue States should raise the taxes on bigger corporations to help fund the program, possibly even creating corporate tax brackets.
I think states should try to implement UBI at the state level, since it could be many years now before we have the votes to pass it federally. In the meantime, residents in Blue states could have a huge bump in their quality-of-life and it might even sell Purple and Red states to implement some of these progressive programs.
I could see something like what you are saying working Federally for funding such a program. We could implement Federal tax brackets on businesses as well to help fund the programs year after year if we really needed that.
I’m not sure what your meme is saying. Is the implication that if there is UBI, then nobody will work anymore? I might be misunderstanding
If that is the argument, it is a pretty damning rebuke of a UBI.
Someone needs to work for housing and food to exist. If a UBI causes everyone to not work (including those producing food, etc), there will very quickly not be food and other necissities.
No sane UBI plan will do this. The goal is to cover Basic needs, not replace working. What it does attempt to do away with is the requirement to work yourself to the bone to barely survive. Working to pay for things more than the basics is still expected.
A useful side effect is to rebalance the power dynamics between larger companies and their employees. It’s a lot harder to abuse someone if they won’t be homeless within 3 months if they quit.
I have been workshopping a “Universal Ranked Income” concept, where UBI provides all necessities, while capitalism is used for luxury goods. For example, you get free generic shampoo and conditioner. If you want versions that are scented or have different properties, you spend money. All money is for getting upgrades to lifestyle - bigger beds, vehicles, houses, ect, but the state provides free but boring goods and services as a baseline. Capitalism has to compete against free.
The way I figure, doing it this way allows us to have the best qualities of capitalism, while preventing the hostage leverage that needing food, shelter, and general wellbeing that corporations exploit against people. By ensuring people have what they need, they can essentially unionize by default - the corporations can’t force them nor their families to genuinely suffer for refusing to work bad jobs.
Unfortunately, there are complaints about my concept creating ‘castes’, since I want absolute limitations on wealth, fixed incomes, and want each job to fall into a rank of income according to difficulty, education, and risk that is involved with that type of job. IMO, a national standardization of incomes and job requirements that employers can’t manipulate is key to egalitarianism.
That would effectively create a planned economy. In theory it could work. Unfortunately, the human element cripples it. How do you rank the value of doctors against cleaners? How do you rank bananas against bread? The core elements were tried with communism, and found to fall severely short.
What has been found, in Africa, with micro loans/grants is that people are a LOT more efficient at maximising value locally than a lot of applied rules. Giving them money (e.g. to start a business) is a lot more effective than giving them resources directly. It uses capitalism to optimise on the local scale.
One of the key things with UBI is letting people and businesses sort things out on the small scale. While capitalism has massive issues, it’s VERY good at sorting this sort of problem.
My personal preference would be a closed loop tax based system. Basically, a fixed percentage of money earned (e.g. 15%) is taxed on everyone. That is then distributed on a per capita basis. There would be a cutoff point where you pay more than you receive. The big advantage is that it’s dynamic to the economy. If the economy shrinks, then UBI shrinks with it, encouraging people to work more to compensate. It provides a floor of income, letting people negotiate working conditions, without the fear of homelessness. It also channels money from the rich, where it moves slowly, to the poor, where it has a far higher velocity.
Keeping people in grinding poverty is an essential function of capitalism tho.
Well, unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better picture.
So, just a heads up, that comment was an invitation to clarify what specifically you are trying to say with your meme.
By the way, what is this phenomenon on Lemmy? Let’s say people are reluctant to read and comment on old posts published just a couple of days or a week ago, but with new ones, it’s a completely different story. What kind of psychology is this? Or it seemed to me?
In the default lemmy feed (in browser view at least), posts only show if they’re younger than 3 days (72 hours). So older posts typically get ignored, so nobody wants to comment there because nobody will read these comments anyways.
There are some legit criticisms from the left on UBI, it’s myopic focus on consumption, the possibility of it being eaten away due to inflation it causes and becoming a gift to landlords etc. I don’t think “the government will use it to control us” is a good one as that can be said about any social service the government provides. Should we not have universal Healthcare because if a fascist takes over he can kick you off the roles and you’ll die from a preventable disease?
Filling everyone’s basic needs will be a vast social undertaking that will require a lot of organization, just because someone might take over that organization and wield it for power doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it, it just means we have to keep careful watch over it when we do.
I think it’s still worth implementing UBI, most of the fears are something that can be tackled independently.
For instance, the why not have the government buy up most of the private apartments and turn them into public housing? Or at the least set rate increase limits on rent.
I don’t believe most things would face much noticeable inflation if a UBI were to be implemented, aside from luxury/high quality goods. A little inflation is baked into our economy anyway, as a little inflation is a good thing to prevent deflation.
I agree with you, people fear mongering about UBI being used to control people, when bosses could do that currently with a paycheck. UBI usually means no strings attached, although I’m sure there could be other incentive programs out there on top of UBI to reward people.
If we really want UBI to be less likely to be taken over by bad actors, I feel it makes sense to have each state implementing their own UBI programs. It would be great if this was a federal program that helped everyone, but even getting it passed federally is looking like an uphill climb. It makes way more sense to pass UBI in progressive states, and try to sell purple and red states on the idea as well.
I mean, Alaska has a Basic Income at the least, so in theory we already see one state mildly seeing the benefit of a Universal Basic Income.
I don’t think “the government will use it to control us” is a good one as that can be said about any social service the government provides.
It’s backwards, as the method of social control by the state is national security. And we’ve never seen so-called libertarian conservatives flinch at inflating the size of the Pentagon or the FBI or ICE.
The real “danger” of Social Security / Medicare / HUD is that a state official might provide a benefit that endears the public to an institution of the state at the expense of the free market. In effect, the “control” is the result of popular support for a program. And the “victims” are people who want the program expanded.
I’m pretty loud about most of those criticisms from the left and I still think it would be better than this.
the possibility of it being eaten away due to inflation it causes
This is a right wing argument against UBI. If you receive 5 recruiter calls per day begging to take an employer’s money, wages will go up, and demand will go up, forcing supply/competition to catch up to take/trickle back all of people’s money back to corporatist ownership. UBI is not wealth redistribution, it is you getting more stuff while still having an end of month balance of $0.
becoming a gift to landlords
More of a left argument. But individual empowerment means freedom from structural policies that drive rent extortion. UBI means you can share rent with certainty that they can pay rent. Landlord risk against tenants not paying going down, means less risk to renting basements and attics. You have the power to pay for moving expenses to escape asshole landlord policies, or structurally oppressive cities, without needing a job in new location first. UBI means you can afford home ownership and become a landlord yourself.
A leftist brainworm is that “classes of people are assholes” and can only be eaten as a solution. The truth is corrupt market power imbalances create resentment of the powerful. UBI allows for natural “perfect competition” (all the suppliers make a fair ROI for voluntarily participating) markets, which housing is one. I said this was a left criticism, but it’s also a right criticism against inflation.
“the government will use it to control us”
It’s an absurd criticism, because UBI is freedom from government discretion. Although its the right that threatens to take away healthcare from classes of people (trans), SS is not up for discussion as “for republicans only”. Medicaid is a “lower race” program that is attacked while Medicare is a “Republican constituency”. UBI is power redistribution that doesn’t give rise to the “American History X” accusations of “programs tilted just for the subhumans” divisiveness. We all get the same deserved dividend respresenting our equal ownership share of the country, and its tax revenue.
Filling everyone’s basic needs will be a vast social undertaking that will require a lot of organization, just because someone might take over that organization and wield it for power doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it
The UBI distribution organization is the IRS. Trump’s IRS crony takeover is just about preventing audits for those who bribe him to ignore their tax fraud. It won’t be used to change your/general people’s refund formula.
forcing supply/competition to catch up
How though? There’s no mechanism in UBI to increase production to match the increased demand. If anything its could decrease production / supply as less people work and choose to just live off UBI. Increasing the amount of cash in the market doesn’t increase productivity/ supply, otherwise printing money would work. Increasing aggregate demand / money without increasing aggregate supply / productivity just leads to inflation. This is what I mean by its myopic focus on consumption, production also needs to be considered. Everyone wants to focus on the “to each according to their needs” part and not the “from each according to their ability”
Yeah certain industries can scale up relatively cheaply to match this increased demand but things like housing which have a limited supply that expands relatively slowly will just see price increases. You said this could cause increased competition for landlords but it will also cause increased competition for housing.
If there are 4 houses and 5 households and before UBI 4 households made enough to afford $1,000 in rent and they got the 4 houses, after UBI of $1,000 the landlord can use the threat of renting to the homeless person to raise the rent until that homeless person is priced out again. If you increase the amount of money people have without increasing supply then the people will use that money to bid up prices until you’re back to the old distribution of resources.
The alternative to UBI that the left has been pushing forever, especially the African American left, has been a universal jobs guarantee. Anyone can go into a government office and they’ll give you a job with decent pay. Since you’re putting people to work you can actually increase productivity and supply to match the new demand. You still get all the guarantees of income and the benefits that entails of getting out of bad situations but you also are able to pressure employers for better labor standards. If the government is offering a living wage for 3 days a week then other employers will have to match that. It’s also more politically viable, trying to convince middle America that “free money” is a good thing will be a lot harder then convincing them that a jobs guarantee is good.
How though? There’s no mechanism in UBI to increase production to match the increased demand. If anything its could decrease production / supply as less people work and choose to just live off UBI.
UBI gives a lot of leverage to workers to have over their employers.
Some people will do as you have said, where they will opt to not work and live off UBI. We see that currently though with some of these people living on the streets. People work for many reasons ultimately. For some, it’s to have their basic needs met, but many people work to have a higher quality of life and to have their wants met as well.
With a UBI you ideally could have a small apartment, amenities, pay for public transportation, and not have to worry about putting food on your table each day. Let me just say you have Universal Healthcare too since if we managed to get UBI implemented, then there likely are other progressive programs we could implement at the same time.
Increasing the amount of cash in the market doesn’t increase productivity/ supply, otherwise printing money would work.
The thing about UBI is that money is backed by the US government, they’re not printing new dollars, so they’re not devaluing the money in the marketplace.
Actually printing money in bulk is bad, because those printed dollars are not backed by assets, thus devaluing that currency as a whole. The US does print more money occasionally, but we devalue our dollar a little each time that we do.
Increasing aggregate demand / money without increasing aggregate supply / productivity just leads to inflation. This is what I mean by its myopic focus on consumption, production also needs to be considered. Everyone wants to focus on the “to each according to their needs” part and not the “from each according to their ability”
I agree that if our demand outpaced our production it would lead to higher inflation. Currently though, we produce much, much more than is demanded. So much so that we have billions in waste each year, that’s billions in weight too! So, realistically, people would be able to afford more food, but people only need/want so much food so spending habits on food should not change so much as to leave shelves consistently empty.
The same thing applies to clothing as well, where we toss tons, upon tons of new clothes each year.
Yeah certain industries can scale up relatively cheaply to match this increased demand but things like housing which have a limited supply that expands relatively slowly will just see price increases. You said this could cause increased competition for landlords but it will also cause increased competition for housing.
Housing is purposefully kept at low supply. If houses and apartments were allowed to be scaled up to meet demand, then housing prices would go down. The thing is, that all the Not In My Backyard (NIMBYs) people will not stand for having the price of their house going down, especially if the price could ever drop to be lower than they are paying for their mortgage. Development is slowed down for similar reasons since if there is an abundance of available housing then housing prices could drop.
If there are 4 houses and 5 households and before UBI 4 households made enough to afford $1,000 in rent and they got the 4 houses, after UBI of $1,000 the landlord can use the threat of renting to the homeless person to raise the rent until that homeless person is priced out again. If you increase the amount of money people have without increasing supply then the people will use that money to bid up prices until you’re back to the old distribution of resources.
The government could step in to buy up many private apartments up to turn into public housing or they could implement rent controls to prevent rampant greed from landlords. I don’t think UBI would be enough for most people currently living on the streets to afford to live downtown, but it could help them keep a small apartment in one of the less busy cities or in the lower cost neighborhoods.
The alternative to UBI that the left has been pushing forever, especially the African American left, has been a universal jobs guarantee. Anyone can go into a government office and they’ll give you a job with decent pay. Since you’re putting people to work you can actually increase productivity and supply to match the new demand. You still get all the guarantees of income and the benefits that entails of getting out of bad situations but you also are able to pressure employers for better labor standards. If the government is offering a living wage for 3 days a week then other employers will have to match that. It’s also more politically viable, trying to convince middle America that “free money” is a good thing will be a lot harder then convincing them that a jobs guarantee is good.
Personally, I’m in favor of more government jobs that pay a living wage. I don’t think it has to be mutually exclusive, mind you, we could have UBI and more government jobs. UBI gives more flexibility to a lot of people out there, for instance single parents can more easily work part-time and still put food on the table or university students could focus more on their education rather than needing to balance a part-time job and their schoolwork.
I agree that convincing ‘everyone’ of a UBI would be hard, but if Blue states implemented it and it saw success, then I’m sure people living in Purple/Red states could be convinced as well. I think you’re spot on though that we should still try to sell Universal Job Guarantee at the federal level as it could be sold right now with no further elaboration.
There’s no mechanism in UBI to increase production to match the increased demand.
There will normally be import pressure if every local supplier refuses to increase supply to meet the large demand, and economic growth, increase that UBI affords. Fine, our usual scarcity economics are proven profitable. But, any supplier can take share and profits by increasing supply instead of being part of cartel extortion strategy. Import pressure is key to lowering prices if cartel is “succeeding”.
If anything its could decrease production / supply as less people work and choose to just live off UBI.
You will get 5 job offers per day, and if you refuse them all, everyone else will get 10 job offers per day. You can understand that working a little bit will let you afford more beer and videogames, or consider raising a family. Inflation/work is self adjusting. If everyone hates all work, then work pays awesomely, and prices may rise enough that work still feels needed to stay ahead. Too many people just love work at any wage, and GDP-based freedom dividends makes full time time off more attractive.
after UBI of $1,000 the landlord can use the threat of renting to the homeless person to raise the rent until that homeless person is priced out again.
UBI+work allows you to upgrade your housing. UBI+homelessness will always be able to afford a shoebox, and lifestyle that doesn’t involve harassing people/tourists for spare change. A fixed address shoebox can help with job search in a job market desperate for more workers, and being among the population receiving 5 recruiter calls/emails per day.
a universal jobs guarantee.
Categorically demonic leftist proposal. Create a hierarchy to manage “useless jobs”. Enslaving population’s time to dig and fill holes, is theft of their time that they could pursue to provide useful work, or enhance skills for future useful work, to society. The theft of time and energy able to enhance individual’s lives is categorically evil. Leftist politics is about creating bureaucratic hierarchies to put bandaids on oligarchy, in order to reward leftist allies with bureaucratic positions. It is an unnecessary expense/evil to provide income to people.
but any supplier can take share and profits by increasing supply
Increasing supply in almost every industry requires more labor though. With UBI you get a labor shortage though as less people will work, and the people that do work will be demanding higher wages like you said, pushing up the price of the finished goods.
This is the problem with UBI , it focuses only on demand and consumption on the assumption that increasing them will magically make supply increase to match. But demand doesn’t create supply, labor does, its the core of productivity. Someone’s gotta be making the food we all get to eat, and caring for you when you’re sick or old etc. If more and more of those people decide to go on UBI then there will be less of those to go around and the supply that will be available will be expensive as the people that continue working will demand a higher wage for there service.
UBI + homelessness means you can afford a shoebox and a lifestyle…
Not sure what you mean by this, by homeless do you mean unemployed and a shoebox just means a small APT, or do you mean actually homeless and a shoebox is just a PO box to have a permanent address? Assuming you mean the former, again you aren’t building more shoeboxes so that shoebox that the homeless person wants to rent with there UBI is probably currently occupied by a person who will use all there UBI to bid up the rent so that they can keep there housing as theyre now competing with those homeless people with UBI to keep from being homeless. This works further up the housing ladder as each tier will bid up prices to maintain there housing in the face of rising competition from the lower tiers who now have UBI. So rents increase, but the housing situation for everyone remains the same.
As for the jobs guarantee it doesn’t have to be, nor should it be for most people, digging holes and filling them in. The other benefit of it is that we as a society can decide on what work is useful and not the market. Under this a job could be caring for your dependents at home, building green infrastructure, environmental restoration, building affordable housing etc. work that the current market based system doesn’t value. With UBI you keep that market system of labor and that work doesn’t get done but a lot of socially destructive work like say running a casino keeps going.
UBI actually makes it harder for the government to do these projects as the government wouldn’t have the money for it and labor prices would also go up. It’ll be hard to build actually affordable housing if all the government budget is going to UBI and construction workers now cost twice as much in wages.
UBI works on the assumption that there’s not enough work to be done and that a sizable chunk of the population can stop working and we’ll be fine. That’s not true, not only do we have to keep working on all the things we currently are, we need to do more to transition to net zero and figure out how to sequester millions of tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, that’s not going to happen by itself.
With UBI you get a labor shortage though as less people will work, and the people that do work will be demanding higher wages like you said, pushing up the price of the finished goods.
People will work if they get a good enough offer. That a company’s competitors hope that slavery returns after UBI is implementented is an opportunity for those companies who understand that it will stay forever and hire the people they need to take consumers money. Where imports from slave labour nations is an option, as it mostly is today even with tariffs, then imports can displace higher housing spending. Immigration, AI, Robotics are all alternatives if no one wants to work, and if no one wants to work, everyone is happy to not have to work, and still get cheap enough products.
The other benefit of it is that we as a society can decide on what work is useful and not the market.
Market is absolutely better at deciding what is useful. There still can be functions that are best/only provided by government, and need staff, but those should be proposed government functions/programs because the programs are good. A job guarantee is first you must sacrifice 8 hours per day, then we decide what’s best for you to spend your 8 hours on.
caring for your dependents at home
UBI allows for caring for people/dependents. You don’t need unionized child/dependent care. If I am caring for someone full time already, by all means, bring your dependents to me for extra income for me. UBI can make me more friendly to community on setting a fair price compared to slavery, union supported slavery, economy that forces extortionist pricing for care.
It’ll be hard to build actually affordable housing if all the government budget is going to UBI and construction workers now cost twice as much in wages.
Social housing in much of the world is “income based rent” that rewards getting a 3 bedroom space even if you are single. Rules disallow sharing, and there may be other stupid/oppressive rules too. The best bargain is to only earn grey/black market income to make the housing free. UBI is a far better housing solution. I previously mentioned sharing, or if you are not interested in work, moving to a community where work availability is a non-concern. Expensive housing is exclusively because work opportunities are awesome, or it is a tourist paradise (often convenient for part time work). Welfare/unemployment insurance rules often stipulate that you are not allowed to move.
UBI works on the assumption that there’s not enough work to be done and that a sizable chunk of the population can stop working and we’ll be fine.
UBI only needs to work on principle that you deserve an equal share of tax revenue. Our slavery system works on principle that Oligarchists best rewards are only from slavery, and that paying higher wages to attract people with “fuck you” money cannot possibly be profitable. It’s an argument for even harsher slavery conditions. Oligarchs, and only oligarchs, must decide the only possible economic path.
we need to do more to transition to net zero and figure out how to sequester millions of tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, that’s not going to happen by itself.
Concern for human sustainability only occurs when your next voting decisions is not based on inflation resulting from yet another failed war on Russia. Poverty and stress makes you full tropic thunder, and short sighted. War mongering Zionist supremacism pillaging of your country is too hard to see, if Biden caused egg prices is all the media tells you to base your vote on. Cooperation with Russia is needed to get global warming constrained. Threatening Russia just burns more diesel.
Yes people will work, but less people will work then they do now, that will lower productivity and therefore supply and raise prices. If you’re relying on imports from low wage countries, while your own countries productivity and therefore exports go down, then that will just increase the trade deficit. So more money will be leaving the country, increasing the supply of that currency on the international market and thus decreasing its value. Another word for a decreasing value of currency is inflation.
everyone is happy to not have to work, and still get cheap products
Again where are these products coming from. Internally they will get more expensive as wages rise, externally they will get more expensive as the value of the currency falls.
You picked the one job out of that list that people will voluntarily do. Very few people are signing up to do manual labor restoring ecosystems, building housing/infrastructure. You can say this is a mindset thing that will change once people have there basic needs covered but there are a ton of rich people who don’t work for a living right now and you don’t see them on the highway picking up trash. A change in scarcity mindset isn’t going to build a high speed rail network, labor and investment will, and UBI will make that labor and investment a lot more difficult to get.
We don’t not live a slave system we live in a capitalist system, both use coercion to extract labor from the worker but they do so in very different ways. I’d recommend you read some Marx to better understand the labor relations under capitalism. Either way a UBI system doesn’t challenge the capitalists control of the means of production and thus doesn’t challenge there true power. If anything it reduces the workers power as they can no longer use there power to withhold there labor. What are the unemployed on UBI going to do if there conditions deteriorate? If worst comes to worst workers can always strike which is devastating to the capitalist class. That is one of the main differences between slavery and capitalism, a slave can’t strike and is thus completely powerless.
that will lower productivity and therefore supply and raise prices.
fun fact on definition of productivity: Revenue/labour cost. Inflation can be either profit inflation or wage/cost inflation. In general, if wage inflation is higher than inflation, then workers are better off no matter the inflation rate. Then inflation is costing the owner and consumer classes. Another fun fact: The Federal reserve is a demonic bankster organization that strives to eliminate wage increases, under a pseudo-slavery system. Interest rates are increased to prevent new housing and other business growth to prevent more hiring to drive up wages even more.
If productivity and inflation are critical economic drivers, then we should explicitly support slavery. More whippings will make you work harder. Lower pay will reduce inflation and boost productivity. The near slavery system (you called it capitalism) is as long as there are 100 applicants for every job opening, then the system is working and under control. Adam Smith just advocated for free and fair markets, and there is still a market if there are only 2 applicants per job opening or 5 employers are coveting to hire you away from what you are currently doing.
Sure UBI will tend towards wage inflation. It doesn’t stop profit inflation either. The consumer class is both better off with more disposible income, and having opportunities to compete for idleness. They can compete with higher wage earners or ownership class. As an example, most people think UBI would increase people’s demand for more housing space. Means more profit opportunity from land/ownership, more renovation work to be done, but also empowers people with free time and UBI to qualify for loans to renovate properties themselves from youtube videos. Bottom line is if housing is too expensive from profit and wage inflation, then you will have to do it yourself, but somehow housing demand and work will get balanced, but including profit/ROI for ownership class. Markets do that very well. You will buy a plunger to unclog your toilet if all plumbers charge $1000 to do it, and then become a plumber (or toilet unclogger) to charge others $900.
if wages and profits grow by 10x, then so does tax revenue and basis to increase freedom dividends by 10x. Inflation is a market mechanism. Productivity is unimportant. Humanist economics are abundance and production, but productivity through slavery is not an appropriate path towards it. Fair labour markets are.
a UBI system doesn’t challenge the capitalists control of the means of production and thus doesn’t challenge there true power.
It does, but doesn’t have to. Capital needs cooperation in order to extract profits. The bargaining power of time and work increased by UBI means “less control by capitalists”. It can also challenge ownership class by competing with it through more lending power, and the contribution of worker time towards share of future profits instead of “guaranteed high hourly wage”
If worst comes to worst workers can always strike which is devastating to the capitalist class.
UBI is a better individual empowerment than unions. There were strikes under Biden due to a good economy even if oligarchs successfully convinced electorate that it was shit. Strikes not happening now because when econony turns to shit, more blowjobs for oligarchs instead of striking against them is path to survival. Note also, import theory of currency devaluation is proven false by Trump’s forbidding of imports. Globalization has always meant that $ are not destroyed, and circulate back to US, unless the US is a shithole and there is no reason to support its sustainability, and fewer $ to give/lend back.
Anyone who rants about inflation or productivity as an argument against UBI is ranting in favour of slavery and cannibalism. You are favouring desperation and extreme competition for survival just among the worker class.
A wise answer… But times are tense now, and who knows what surprises await us next. By the way, I recommend looking into what a CBDC is, in my opinion, they will also try to introduce this after digital IDs…
people see newer posts in their feeds so they get more attention. Has nothing to do with reluctance
I don’t comment on old posts to avoid necroin’ xD Old habit from forums and such.
I always hate when I’m reading an old thread, someone comments with a great point, and then someone else starts an argument about necroing.
Gonna be honest, not like I understand it really. I mean, it may be bothersome to get pinged on something you commented 3 days earlier - people move on from such things quite quickly…but I believe it’s just internet culture rn. Like memes getting old quickly etc.
Yes, I asked a stupid question.
UBI is a bad idea because it reinforces and relies on the capitalist idea of money. We should make basic resources themselves free, like a supermarket you can walk into and take stuff without paying, rather than giving people points to buy stuff that costs points.
Fundamentally money is a way of allocating limited resources. As long as there remains greed and limited resources, there need to be such limits. All anti-capitalist campaigners seem to rightly agree that human greed is a constant factor, so it would be crazy to forget it here.
If you give out money the people who own stuff (rich people) will just increase prices and take all that money.
Increasing the money supply does lead to inflation, but it’s not as simple as you make it seem. It’s worth pointing out that generally people intend UBI to redistribute money rather than add to the current supply. If necessary, there’s no reason that you can’t have stronger price regulation for any destabilized industry.
Because even if there is inflation, that doesn’t mean prices go up evenly. For example, staple foods are fairly insulated from inflation because of steady demand and low barriers to entry. If it seems noticeably profitable, a lot of people can start producing it and undercutting each other. Industry collusion is very hard to achieve the more players there are that can sabotage the group.
If UBI covers only basic needs (implied by the B) that are purchased at steady amounts regardless, that opens up the lower classes to a lot more optional spending. So you would probably see the most price increases on things that are currently bought by the upper middle class. Expensive hobbies, premium brands of things with cheaper alternatives, and services in general would probably become more expensive from induced demand.
I agree and my reply was a bit short and incomplete. I’m mostly worried about things like housing and infrastructure. Very expensive and mostly privatized. With that also access to the workers and companies that can actually build stuff.
Those people should be taxed more really. Personally, I believe every dollar over $1 billion should be taxed at 90+%. I would set the threshold for scaling those tax brackets much lower than that though.
Billionaires should be banned from using their stocks as collateral for loans as well.
Definitely
So, why don’t they do just increase all the prices now?
Because people can’t afford it?
If you print £100 and give it to every person, then yes. But if you tax every person with progressive taxation so that the poor pay little or no tax, and then give everyone £100 using the proceeds, no, because you are changing the distribution of resource-allocation-units between the people who had the most and the least of them previously.
Even in the former example the inflation hits the billionaire harder than the worker. For example if we all got a trillion dollars it wouldn’t really matter that Elon has a trillion and a half. Scale that same principle down and UBI is good for the workers.
I disagree that inflation hits billionaires harder, they invest their money in the stock market which outpaces the rate of inflation Year over Year. Meanwhile, your total buying power drops tremendously because of inflation’s increase each year. If most of your money isn’t in the stock market then the worth of your money continues to be less. If you don’t get a wage increase at your job, then you’re making less money each year rather than the same amount as well.
I do agree that UBI is good for workers though, mainly because it also puts power back in the hands of workers since they become not dependent on their employers to survive. Workers instead would be coming into work because they want to thrive.
The “price increases” side of inflation harms the people that hold money.
Billionaires do hold more than poor people, but they still mostly don’t hold any. It’s normally the high-middle class and the poorest fraction of the rich that are hit the most here. You need proper taxation to reach the billionaires.
Yes, but the free money that is given out is typically obtained by taking it from the people who own stuff.
That would be great but it’s usually not the case (look at COVID, the banking crisis in 2008 etc). The money is not coming from the rich.
I agree with you, but also I’m not gonna say no if they did implement UBI. Anarchist mutual aid is better than money, but UBI is better than nothing
Anarchist mutual aid is better than money, but UBI is better than nothing
UBI empowers mutual aid. There’s no basic needs mutual aid required. The most important mutual aid is the ability to contribute work/time and money in exchange for share of future profits. UBI empowers you to contribute your time to something you believe will make you prosperous/happy, without the concern for eating in the next weeks.
Anarchist
anarchism only works with the right kind of people, i’d say. which not everyone is.
Everything only works with the right kind of people. No system is perfect and will always have people who disagree and work to destabilize it and change it. Like America isnt falling to fascism for no reason. So we should at least work towards as free and kind of a world that we can
If we accept that the act of living is inherently a destructive action by our consumption of natural resources.
Then design production chains that try to meet local demand while transparently measuring and minimising actual loss.
We can open stores like this who in an early stage are for select groups like elderly and disabled. The total loss is just a reference number similar to national debt.
Using digital communications polling to measure actual demand to project production needs becomes simplified because potential clients don’t have to choose how to spend a limited currency.
As those production chains and new standards for how to measure loss expand so can we expand clients to include the people who work in such industries and eventually everyone.
Crucial is we don’t need an overnight revolution. This system can get its roots By co existing within current capitalism with the calculated loss simply measured as a financial debt.
The biggest hurdle is legalizing an industry that basically gets a blank free debt card that can be spend on input resources, while making sure they maintain transparent calculations and dedication to minimize planetary loss.
This cannot work in the real world unfortunately. there will always exist greedy self-centered people (coincidentally also the type striving most successfully towards position of power), they will not abide by rules of courtesy that this requires.
We shame them. Greedy people should feel panic at the thought of someone noticing their greediness
Granted that would take a couple generations to instill, but it would help if we started with food
Free food, take as much as you want, but it’s all unprocessed. Lots of stuff would last a while, but greedy people would just make a ton of work for themselves
We produce so much this is an actual option
It’s not like a situation where one greedy person is dropped in the middle of a society of altruists, and the whole thing goes belly up. It is possible to educate a society on what greed looks like, what its effects are, and how to deal with people who try to become utility monsters.
Well, I’m wondering what kind of chaos will start, because these fascists don’t plan on stopping. They want to create cyberpunk and dystopia at any cost, even by stealing taxpayers’ money and more.
