this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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I actually think universal basic income is a very flawed idea from a leftist perspective.
It is effectively a capitalist compromise that still puts all of the asset holders in immense positions of power. The only difference now is they effectively are governmentally enforced as those positions of power. It will make the wealth disparity exponentially worse.
The answer to our wealth disparity is to put power in the hands of the average person.
Having the mass majority of the population trapped in jobs that pay just enough that they put up with it, while giving away all their time and energy to a corporation is exactly why the average person has no power. They’ve had the will drive to force real change sucked out of them.
UBI is a mechanism that can help them take back their time and energy to affect real change.
Take a look at Japan. They aren't exactly doing UBI, but they are printing boatloads of cash, handing it to their citizens and corporations, and are just barely staving off deflation.
Shit gets weird when your population is well educated enough, and rich enough that they stop having multiple kids.
What issues with minimum wage, other than the capitalists who are desperate to keep their costs down from crying wolf about inflation?
I'm still waiting for anyone to show data that raising the minimum wages leads to higher inflation. Should be pretty easy to show looking at the minimum wages across countries over the last 25-50 years, while also looking at the inflation rates over that same period.
As far as governments not raising the minimums, that is the result of poor policy when they were implemented, to not tie the minimum wage to inflation in the first place. People are more aware of that issue now, so hopefully that mistake wouldn't be implemented.
I don't really expect UBI to be implemented on a larger scale because the people who buy the laws won't allow it.
If they worked for democratic cooperatives and not dictatorial corporations they would have power to raise their pay and work less.
Average voter: "Ugh, all the power and responsibility is too much work. Can't we just elect someone that takes care of all of this for us?" Congress/parliaments are born. "Ugh, keeping track of all these politicians and their policies and waiting for them to enact laws is too slow and tedious. Can't we just elect some sort of super politician that promises to take care of all our problems quickly?"
If the labor force could opt out of the rat race because they didn't have to work, then they gives them immense power especially considering what they have now. Of course the necessities would have to be controlled in a not-for-profit manner so that you can't just have some land baron that adjusts the cost of rent and food upward to ensure it eats up all the UBI, same with utilities/internet/etc.
But for consumerist goods that people want because they enhance life, if people could realistically withhold their labor unless the capitalist offered equity etc in industries that produced those things, you would quickly see the power of the leaders of those industries wane significantly.
Yes. All the free market economy guys are making assumptions about efficient markets and infinite choices, but none of that is true. But the reality is laborers don't even have the ability to leave a shitty job even with alternatives available, like just interviewing would use up a precious sick day or cost them hours of wage.
For most jobs in the US you'd be burning a sick day and losing hours of wages. Most jobs in the US do not pay you for sick days, they just don't use that as an excuse to fire you.
If only a few control the LLMs that write the news and run society in general, bad shit will happen even if 99% of the profits went back to the people as UBI or some other distribution method.
Not sure what the solution is, but if AI is to become the new means of production, it can't be entrusted to a few capitalists.
Obviously this won't be a problem once AI becomes self-aware. /s
I don't see how UBI would materially worsen the lives of the chronically ill and those who cannot sell their labor. It's essentially universal welfare that allows anyone to survive whether they sell their labor or not. That gives you the ability to leave a job that is exploiting you. Without UBI losing your job means potentially becoming homeless.
I'd say that it isn't far enough, sure. I'd also say that food and shelter should be considered universal human rights that everyone has to by law have access to regardless of their circumstances. Which would itself provide many of the same benefits as UBI.
As an anarchist and a socialist I'd change almost everything about the way the current world functions. But as a direct thing that would improve the lives of almost everyone, I am very much in favor of UBI.
I never said we dont need reforms. In fact the issue I have is Capitalism as a whole.
All UBI would do is give those who own the means of automation 100% power. What leverage would we have if not our labor?
Thats not at all to say what we have going on right now is not evil.
UBI doesn’t give any power to those who own the means of automation, nor does it take power away from laborers. Automation does that. Automation reduces the leverage of the laborer by reducing the capitalist’s reliance on labor.
We have the same leverage regardless of whether we have UBI or not, but the leverage of employers is reduced with UBI. That said, if more people opt not to work thanks to UBI, then the people who choose to work will see their leverage increased.
Not sure why you think there wouldn't be any more need for labor, unless you're thinking of some far future post-scarcity society where literally everything is automated. A UBI implemented now would give the working class even more power because they'd be able to actually use their labor as leverage instead of being forced to choose between working for shit pay or starvation.
No, the automation technology gives them that power, ubi is a consequence of it. The more productivity per worker a company can achieve, the fewer employees they need.
You really think as technology advances and companies implement more and more of it, that companies only end up with more leverage if the local government is doing UBI?
UBI is welfare product that helps low bracket earners. If the tax code was functional it would be paid for by the corporations and 1% themselves and even so it's still extremely helpful where it's implemented.
Many governments have mandatory severance pay to prevent this. UBI is next level
Why not both? We're already at dystopian levels of wealth vs poor, let's make the transition easier on the poor.
Pay people to vote.
At the very least we could make voting day a national holiday, so it isn't costing people money to vote.
Right now people are essentially being paid by their employers to not vote, and mostly just minimum wage.
I agree with the holiday thing but the worst paid workers don't get to take holidays off.
You're right, and many will choose to work holidays in order to make extra money, because minimum wage isn't really enough to support anyone.
Still, the government should be doing everything in its power to make voting easy, accessible and penalty-free.
In most of the democracies, voting day is on Sunday.
Yeah. My fundamental problem with things like UBI, reform/regulation, etc is that it leaves power in the hands of capitalists. Maybe in the short term you get some gains for a broader segment of society like during the height of union power in the US, (recognizing that even that was imperfect because of segregation) but in the long term capitalists can keep using their wealth and power to chip away at those societal gains. The only way to counter this while maintaining capitalism would be perpetual political activism, but that's simply not feasible. People need to sleep, eat, work, and live their lives. Corporations don't. They can hire lobbyists and lawyers to keep chipping away long after everyone else goes home.
This is one reason I'm especially interested in worker cooperatives.
You're right, people spend 8+ hours a day at work, strengthening business owners, who are essentially working against them. Then some small fraction of people have/take the time to learn about issues affecting them and volunteer a couple hours a week for their chosen cause.
Even those in a union are negotiating from the standpoint of "the company owns the equipment/processes/customers and we own our labor".
What if instead the workers also own the business? Now you're spending eight hours (or less) a day working on something that directly benefits you, and with which you're intimately familiar. It's possible to make democratic decisions because it's not some abstract issue or far away politician. And every successful worker cooperative reduces the money going to some micro-king, and in turn reduces the distorting effect of corporate money on our electoral system.
Have you met lemmygrad.ml?
We should have universal basic dividand.
Good first step though. Imagine all the protest/riot organising time we'd have
The answer (I think) it's not UBI, cooperatives OR more democracy. It's all this at once and even more.
UBI would mean everyone has a meal under a roof and has no fear of starting a business. Cooperatives put the value of the work in the hands of the worker. Free public universal healthcare and education systems with public affordable/free housing and public supermarkets makes everyone safer.
Have you met lemmygrad.ml?
The problem with UBI is it won't come without the power of the people forcing it. And then when that dies down it can just as easily be taken away. If you've got a mass movement with that power, why would stop at a bandaid?
Post economic system. You don’t need one the only excuse is to control society under a monetary policy and scheme.
I'm not even sure what this would mean. Are you talking about everyone having a replicator and no one trades goods and services anymore? An "economic system" is just the umbrella term for whatever method people use to exchange goods and services.