I was once talking with one of my classmates and he said that in the future, there will be universal basic income implemented by entire world. I was not convinced at that time and thought he is just being stupid but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment, I am thinking about this possibility. What do you say?
To be honest I’m not fan of UBI. I’m more fond of redistribution of work.
If there’s less things to do due to automatization let’s just all work less hours with full income.
I think ubi would do that
People have a baseline income and can work less or maybe even not at all if noy necessary. Those that really want more can work and earn more then
I think it will be very important for that to work that we first put wealth caps. Nobody should be able to have a net worth that is an X amount. Anything above that should be taxed 100%. Say, 10 million for example, nice upper limit.
If all the nasocs are covered, free healthcare, free education, UBI, wealth caps, I think we’d live in a near utopia
It will never happen.
Not because it is a bad idea; it is an AWESOME idea. Work used to be something you do for the collectivity; you do something for the group, in exchange of something from the group. Today, a work is a mean to earn money, regardless of the collectivity. We do meaningless jobs, which often gives nothing to the collectivity, just because we have a rent to pay, we want vacations and a new car. A universal basic income would completely break this; I would work to bring something to the group, not to reach a stupid objective for the company.
However, there is a fringe of people which will not gain anything from this, even lose leverage and power over the masses: the 1%, the millionaires and billionaires. They will do whatever they can to kill it, saying only freeloaders and foreigners will benefits from it. And the masses will vote against it, and it will be a big victory for capitalism. Until global warming accelerate, we will have nothing to eat anymore and earth will be inhospitable for humans. The end.
The billionaires would have to fund it, and I don’t believe for a second they wouldn’t leave us all to starve.
they will just fund politicians to vote against it, gop is totally on board, theyonly need to fund people like schumer and hakeem.
UBI has to have a lot of folks wanting it and theres contingents that would rather starve then see those people get a thin dime, with “those people” having various meanings. Then there’s the temporarily embarassed millionaires, and of course the Fox news crew who think socio-commu-trans folk are going to dye their kids hair blue and make them worship Satan.
I think it’s absolutely necessary as stop-gap on the way to a truly post-scarcity society where money is irrelevant, but highly unlikely because greedy cunts run everything.
It depends on society not turning itself inside out.
If we could just pluck along where we were in the early 10’s, everywhere that has socialized healthcare will eventally slowly install UBI and all the like things that come with it.
But, looking at the trends in society, wars, weather, oligarchs, and population decline, we might only have a few generations left.
No, Americans are hateful people who cannot stand to even see a poor person buy soda with SNAP benefits. They will ensure that those displaced by AI end up begging in the street before receiving a penny from the government.
I am not an American but there are a lot of people in my country who hate charity works like free food drives, free medical checkups and etc.
In a few places, maybe, but there’s a lot of the world where governments barely function in the first place. Roads aren’t even a solved problem globally. UBI for even middle income countries wouldn’t happen before climate change caused such damage as to undo any progress that might maybe make UBI possible.
When UBI starts being seriously considered on a large scale, you’ll likely see a massive influence campaign against it. Something along the lines of “If you give people free money, they’ll never get a job.” It will likely have racial undertones that range from subtle and implicit to wildly explicit, depending on the forum.
If low information working class people, those who would benefit the most from such a program, fall for that campaign, as they often do, you’ll see a backlash against it that could prevent it from becoming law.
I heard some evangelicals in US saying that it is unbiblical to give UBI, so I can guess that some people really want to demonize this concept.
I talked with my mother about this years ago. She confidently said, if you give people free money, nobody will do any work. I argued but she wouldn’t budge.
She is now comfortably retired, and makes hats with her time, and sells them. But that’s different.
You know, everyone who I personally know who passionately argues that if you give people free money they won’t do any work has been a stay at home mom.
Stay at home moms get “free” money from the spouse who goes to work and supports them.
I would also argue that stay at home moms work harder than a lot of us who have full time jobs. I get to leave work and mentally check out, they’re “at work” all the time.
Someone should point this out to the people who make this argument.
You just described the campaigns against welfare in general that have been going on for decades, which is also what I see happening with UBI. It will absolutely be sunk the same way any other social benefit is sunk through misinformation and outright lies.
Do you think it would help if you told them 40% of adults already don’t have jobs and that making that number higher isn’t as big of a leap as they think?
Don’t forget racism. “Look at those people, existing with that color skin. On your dime!?!?”
UBI is a bandaid to keep capitalism propped up by neo-liberals. It’s contingent on the idea that society is dependent on people spending money, rather than getting essential services and enough free time to maintain mental stability.
rather than getting essential services
UBI says income, not money. resources and services provided to you would still be income.
It makes working voluntary but still incentivized, whereas without something like that, someone needs to force people to do the jobs that provide those essential services. People will volunteer doing fun things for their local community, but generally no further.
nah. there’s people out there whose favourite thing is to do the niche “yucky” or tedious things, but they can’t, because they had to get a job in marketing, or work in retail because they needed ANY job just so they could survive.
Yes, I’m sure plenty of people actually wanted to become plumbers, farmers or construction workers, but had to settle for a job in marketing or such because that was all they could find.
i think you get my point, though. during the pandemic, the garden centres emptied out, because people wanted to grow their own food.
nah. there’s people out there whose favourite thing is to do the niche “yucky” or tedious things, but they can’t, because they had to get a job in marketing, or work in retail because they needed ANY job just so they could survive.
This is one of those ideas that only makes sense at the surface level and fails at the slightest bit of scrutiny. Yes, it is technically correct that any job out there will have some nonzero number of people who would do it just because they want to. But that’s no way to run a civilization.
That system only works if there just by random coincidence happens to be a perfect match between the jobs people want to do and the jobs that need doing. Are there are a few weirdos that would wade waist-deep in literal shit to clean out sewers for free, just because they enjoy it? It’s a big world and people are weird, so there probably are a few people out there like that. Are there enough of those rare weirdos to keep all our sewers operating? Highly unlikely.
I know your system would fail because we have clear evidence from our own economy that there is a major mismatch between the jobs people want and the jobs that need doing. Look at every job out there that attracts people who want to do the job for its own sake. Look at university teaching, for instance. Universities can get away with having classes taught by poorly paid adjuncts because lots of people would like to teach university courses. There are far more potential university lecturers out there than the number of lecturers universities can actually support. Universities can pay their adjuncts a pittance, and they still have people sign up to teach classes. The low adjunct pay problem would disappear tomorrow if people simply stopped taking adjunct teaching jobs.
Look around to nearly any field that people go into primarily out of passion. They nearly all pay a pittance. “Let people choose whatever job they want” simply isn’t a viable way of running an economy. Everyone wants to teach kids or care for puppies. No one wants to clean out sewers.
You always have to have some way of getting people to work jobs that they wouldn’t choose voluntarily. There are simply things that need to be done for society to function that not many people want to do. In a capitalist system, this is done by offering higher wages for positions few people want. In socialist systems, this looks like offering more perks like better housing to unwanted jobs (pay by another name.) But you’re trying to hand waive away an unavoidable problem by dismissing it as, “no worries, people will just do what they want and things will work out!”
Universities can get away with having classes taught by poorly paid adjuncts because lots of people would like to teach university courses
that’s because those jobs come with pensions and job security. if a UBI was in place, then jobs like that would have no choice, but to offer more money. same with the undesirable jobs like cleaning sewers. can’t fill it? offer more money. this is why farmers have to rely on migrant workers, because they simply can’t pay enough
Yeah, I mean it’s not like a lot of those services are already populated by people who are underpaid and overworked because they love what they do and love helping people…
You mean people who got the jobs they could get and would prefer not working those jobs if they could get away with it. Trust me, a lot of people working physically demanding jobs don’t do it because of their enjoyment of wrecking their own bodies.
I really like UBI and think it would work wonderfully if it was somehow actually implemented without major bullshit. But I’m not sure it’s even possible to implement, because it would make it next to impossible to exploit and control people, which would be really bad for corporate profits. I’m skeptical that capitalist democracy is strong enough to overcome that, I think maybe the way it works is more of a negotiation of power between the factions that actually hold leverage over things, and that it is impossible for that to result in prioritizing the interests of those without leverage, which UBI recipients would ostensibly be. If it looks like everyone is going to vote for UBI despite the best available propaganda against it, maybe the powers that be will just agree amongst themselves that they don’t really depend on that group of voters in any critical way, so they’ll just shut down or falsify voting and enforce their will with automated violence, because they prioritize maintaining control.
So probably what’s needed as a prelude to direct government relief from exploitation is generally increased negotiating power for every person, which won’t be a top-down thing for the most part.
I don’t honestly think it will happen in a way that is genuinely good for people. It will happen in a way where the rich and powerful are in control and can use it as a method for maintaining control.
Came here to say this. Nobody in power gives up their power to the masses willingly, it must be taken. And the price is almost always paid in blood and suffering. And every victory is only temporary as they try to regain the power that was taken from them.
but surely their power lies in money. if nobody has the money to buy the things billionaires profit from, then they lose their power
I mean you could just make Luigi a national holiday or event. Kill the rich once in a while to keep them in line.
realistically, yes, at least in america. the reason is simple: it makes the economy go up. if people have more money to spend -> more consumption -> more revenue for companies -> more profit -> higher stock valuations. it’s very simple actually. it’s very much in the interest of the state and everyone in power to do exactly that.
