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👏 Don’t 👏 let 👏 that 👏 detract 👏 from 👏 the 👏 message.
Off topic but I read it as handicap emoji . I’m a boomer and use emoji and acronyms infrequently.
The word boomer should be cancelled
OK, boomer
Don’t think I am one. Born very early 80s.
OK, millennial
Think I’m GenX
It’s been around since 1963, good luck with that. It will fade into obscurity once the last of the boomers are gone.
I read it that way too. Our brains tend to guess the word and fill in the blanks based off of the first and last character of a word. I’m sure the length helped in this case too lol
Same. Handicap is a far more common word than handclap, so it was a good guess!
They make me think of that Stefon character from SNL.
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Eh, it’s for emphasis, it’s just a style that gives a visual along with the words that indicate a specific physical movement that some people interpret in a specific way and changes how they are communicating, thus changing the message in a minute way. It’s not hurting you, if it’s enough to make you want to disregard what they are saying that seems pretty petty of you. Just because people communicate differently from you isn’t enough of a reason to disrespect them or what they have up say. Now, if they’re saying something abhorrent, that’s a different story, but you’re not an idiot, just judgemental
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It is intended ironically. Whether or not this is a good thing, I think the lemmy audience tends to struggle with anything that is not strictly literal.
I agree. It’s trashy as fuck.
Me 👏 too 👏
Leftists try not to be insufferable whilst doing/saying leftist things challenge [impossible]
– sincerily, a leftist
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100% with you. It’s like writing “Period” at the end of what you said, as if that makes it more true. And, ironically, it’s almost always some take that requires ignoring all nuance.
It isn’t ironic at all. Ignoring nuance is the whole point. Saying “Period.” at the end of a statement emphasizes that the statement is complete, and that you will not entertain any qualifying subclauses being appended to it. It’s explicitly rejecting nuance.
Still annoying, though.
Really? That was your shut-it-down moment?
Not the : let’s compare ourselves to other species which have no doctors, science, hygiene, toilets, devices or ready made food as to why were such a cushy society that hoarding money really shouldn’t be a thing we do and kinda missed the point of why a society is usually formed?
That’s low-key racist innit?
what race claps the most hands?and 👏 IS 👏 IT 👏 SIMPSONS 👏
I can say for sure that they have a scene about clapping. When Lisa asked Bart “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” during a discussion of philosophy, and Bart replied, “Yo Lisa, listen up” and went psht-psht-psht with one hand by clapping the fingers against the palm.
Okay, but other species aren’t even able to pay to exist. If a human wants them dead, they dead —unless they the property of another human being of course.
You act as if paying to exist is a privilege. It is a requirement of being a human in our society. A requirement that functionally requires you to be exploited by those who won the birth lottery.
It is a privilege in contrast to other species, the exact juxtaposition done by the OP. It’s like complaining that the free man has to pay for room and board while the slave doesn’t. I’ve heard exact arguments like this from slavery apologists, that slaves had it really good actually.
How exactly are other species relevant to how we structure our society? It is true that humans are the top dog in the circle of life, but how is that relevant?
I said nothing about slavery, why are you changing the subject?
EDIT: I guess I missed the first sentence in the OP about species. I think caring about how other species do things is just a red herring to draw attention.
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Also, you could easily not have to pay to exist. You’d just be living a hard hard life out in the sticks or be taken care of in jail with the tradeoff of a lack of freedom.
People in prison are hardly taken care of. Read up on healthcare in prisons, for example.
Taken care of was not the right phrase, only in the sense that you’ll keep existing for no money. Quality of life for a free existence is not going to be pretty any way you slice it.
Yeah. This is a terrible argument. Sounds great to ubi supporters.
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The argument is that a person can be willing and able to work, but because resources were distributed unevenly before we were all born, it’s possible to be homeless and hungry. Or more likely, scraping by with a job while a small percentage of wealthy people take a cut of everything you do and you have to be careful not to displease them.
Your original post is really shit and no one will take you seriously. Everyone has to contribute for society to exist. Even if land was free, we would love in a society. There is no living “alone”. Everyone lives together and everyone contributes. Now, is it the reality currently? Maybe not, but your post does not even address that and it makes just some wild statement about we “have to pay to live and that’s atrocious” while in reality, even in the goddamn wild you have to pay. Not with money but with labour which is what money is about.
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Well it certainly drove some discussion.
I think talking about land, some people think it’s about buying a nice house or something, but really it’s about being able to exist in any physical space. You’re born and now you’ve got to be somewhere, you’ve got to sleep somewhere and work somewhere. If you’re lucky your parents own something. If you’re not you’ve got to pay. (Of course even owning you’ve got to pay tax but that’s another conversation)
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You’re right, everyone needs to pay for necessities. Some people don’t need an income source, because of inheritance.
Forgot I had this
I think the alternative is finding and defending your own space and possessions from others who have weapons and would take it from you, growing or hunting everything you require for survival, relying on whatever gifts other may give you or on trading whatever excesses you have accumulated for other needs.
Money has made this difficult job much much more efficient, leading to a vast excess of wealth accumulation*. Everybody can focus on what they can offer, in exchange for tokens of value. Those tokens of value are then exchanged for the goods and services that they didn’t otherwise need to create on their own.
*The problem is that the accumulation is focused on the people and their heirs, mostly, who’ve acquired tangible assets. Although a lot of the wealth has been reinvested in improvements. We have GPS guided robotic harvesters now, for example and not as many people need to toil just to live.
There is no system through which to redistribute this wealth once it’s locked into some dynastic family’s coffers. There are many governments that could and should be tasked with improving the place constantly, however they typically suck at the job.
I think the solution now is the same as it has always been. When the masses are too pissed off they’ll either stop reproducing, decline in population, leaving the production capabilities of the wealthy in decline, or they’ll fight back in a revolt.
think the alternative is finding and defending your own space and possessions from others
Surely there must be a middle way.
I don’t mind renting land from the state. I pay my property tax and income tax and in return get protection from the police and military and health care and more, basically a whole society to live in.
The problem is that the landlords set themselves as the middleman who rent the land from the state and sublet it to the people. I don’t remember any of my landlords defending me or my belongings from wilderbeasts or other people. They’re just middlemen who have increased the potential pricing of all the land so that it is no longer affordable for everyone to rent directly from the state. They can only do this because they have enough capital to get their hands on the land in the first place, or by inheritance. The price of the land is artificial. It’s not about how much it’s worth for anyone living there. No, the price is only about how much can theoretically be leeched off the people needing to live on that land
Landlords aren’t renting land from the state, they own the land, the state is just collecting a protection fee from them since landlords generally don’t have an army to defend them and their property from attackers.
What’s the difference?
Saying landlords are renting and then subletting makes it sound like they’re double dipping, just a passive middle man contributing nothing. They’re not renting from the state, they’re the owners who take on all the risk and other costs associating with full ownership. They pay for maintenance, they’re subject to value changes in real estate markets. They bear the cost if someone builds a dump next door and tanks their value. Their asset is very un-liquid. The tenant can walk away from the property somewhat easily, but the landlord has to find a buyer.
Of course, some landlords actually do nothing. As long as we have a healthy competitive market where people can relatively easily build new housing, this competition would punish landlords who don’t provide a good product. Unfortunately in a lot of the US building new housing is very difficult due to NIMBYism, zoning restrictions, and sometimes too harsh environmental or historical review.
Shit take, the average person only used to have to do 20 hours a week of labour to feed their family
Money didn’t make labour “more efficient”
This only works when you divide the time spent working over the year. As a medival peasant you worked your ass off in spring or whenever you sow your fields, kept it up while it grew, which was somewhat normal working times by todays standard, and toiled for double digit hours in harvesting season again. After that was time to do literally nothing. When you look at seasonal holidays in many european countries, they are mostly at the end of harvesting seasons, when you could easily be blackout drunk for a week because there was nothing else to be done. I personally don’t mind regular working hours when the alternative is half a year of 15 hour shifts and half a year of more or less no work.
Was it 7 days on of 15 hours? Because if it was only 6 and I had that one day break once a week and eventually got 6 months off later I would definitely want to do that.
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The reason average life expectancy used to be so low, is because infant mortality was ridiculously high.
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You’re also missing the distribution of those life expectancies. While everyone is crapping on the wealthy, who do you think was able to live to a ripe old age? Who do you think was more likely to die at birth or as a kid, or young adult?
Are we going to let this perverse society take every improvement we make and make us pay for it? We all work for the common good and we have the right to reap the benefits, not be forced to adapt to a system that exploits us just because someone sometime ago invented penicillin and so that good must be offset by an equal sacrifice?
That’s… How life works. In literally every society on the planet right now that’s how things work. If you want something someone else did you have to give in kind. Medicine, clothing, food. No matter what the system undo t get the fruits of others labor for nothing.
People with your take are always thinking they can exist in a society where everyone else provides and u get to do nothing and relax …cuz reasons apparently.
I didn’t get the same takeaway from their message. I don’t think it’s that we should do nothing and get everything, rather we should do things and get a reasonable return for having done them.
You don’t ever get guaranteed all the resources you need to exist. Saying otherwise is literally in the op post. Pretty clear to me.
You can easily have medieval levels of quality of life working like 1 hour a week today. No one, not even kings a few hundred years ago had modern quality of life even with vast amounts of wealth extracted from whole continents of peasants. Modern money and economic systems allow for global trade and innovation that makes things Napolean couldn’t dream of into boring every day stuff for you and me.
Keep defending the need for multiple people to work multiple jobs to sustain a small family
I’d argue one impressive thing about our current global system is it’s possible to make some improvements without total revolution. Will it be enough to, say, avoid climate catastrophe or nuclear disaster? I don’t know. But democracy is a pretty good invention when the alternative is either no change or armed conflict.
!remindme 10 years
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You’d already be dead. That’s a bad bet.
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something something the industrial revolution
This is fucking dumb. Even in the very ancient of ancient of time, people were working to survive. They had to go out, and farm the fucking berries out of the bush and hunt deers and what not. If you couldn’t do that, I don’t think you could be a part of the society. And then, another fucking tribes comes in and try to fuck you up.
What a fucking stupid statement to say. Nothing is free. Even if you remove everyone and everything, you still have to work to survive. And what a good way to survive than to be in a society that separates this burden. Some people farm, some people defends, some people heals and some people educate. Woooow, such a free tribe, they have to work to survive.
You’re right that people need to work. I think you’re reading something that’s not there.
The point is that we need a physical place to exist, to sleep, to work. And since all physical places are already owned, in addition to the work we normally would have to do, we now have to pay a portion of our labor to people who own things. And sure, after we’ve been working a bit we start to own things too. But it’s an uneven playing field. If you didn’t come into the world owning, you can be denied work. You can be made homeless.
If we don’t want the world to devolve back to the scenario you described where another tribe comes and takes what you’ve worked for by force, we should guarantee a base level of human needs being met.
It’s not wrong that our basic needs are exploited by others, but it is wrong to say that we’re the only species who pays to exist. All life must “pay” by expending energy to find food and shelter. We’ve just developed a system where we earn imaginary currency to buy things instead of having to go out and do all the work necessary to stay alive ourselves.
The sentence “we are the only species that pay to survive” is the most stupid argument one can make for UBI. That’s what is upsetting. Maybe UBI is a good idea, maybe not. But this argument is just not convincing, at best, it feels like a joke. What I’m saying is, we will always have to work to survive, no matter what.
I agree that our society are way too individualistic. We don’t care about each other anymore. It’s as if we don’t need society anymore these days. We take a lot of thing that society give us for granted and we don’t even realize it.
If we don’t want the world to devolve back to the scenario you described where another tribe comes and takes what you’ve worked for by force, we should guarantee a base level of human needs being met.
The scenario they described demonstrably never existed in humanity until hoarding of money and power by individuals became a thing (so feudalism then capitalism).
That’s actually not true. Raiding parties for slave labor has existed since neolithic times.
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What is this history revision bullshit lol ? Read a book sir.
Also, claiming land is what all territorial animals do. They maintain high resource areas with violence. We are not so different. Nature is scarry.
The first sentence really throws it off. UBI might be a good idea, but it’s not because we’re somehow unique in the animal kingdom.
That’s what I"me saying. The first senyetis ridiculous. It’s not serious.
If you couldn’t do that, I don’t think you could be a part of the society. And then, another fucking tribes comes in and try to fuck you up.
Literally bullshit you could easily look up and debunk for yourself in about 5 minutes (here, I’ll even save you making any effort and share this link again https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145).
The fact that you in your ableist ageist mind moulded by capitalism to only see humans for the value of what they can “produce” for you, doesn’t actually mean that any of the bullshit you’ve been led to believe (and are comfortable believing) is true, it just means you’re a bit of an ageist ableist boot licking wilfully ignorant asshole… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Not sure if you’re functionally illiterate or just retarded but even that speculative opinion piece concedes that warfare came hand in hand with agriculture.
You are the asshole for not understanding that saying that we are the only species that pay to survive is the most stupid and not serious take anyone could ever fucking say.
You don’t even know my stance on capitalism or what I believe. Stay on topic or get the fuck out.
Aww… Capitalism claims another baby.
If society will entitle me to go out and take anything I need or kill any animal I see, you’d have a point. The social contract of “private property” is only equitable between the rich and poor if there is some counteracting element in society that prevents people from suffering from the things they would be able to take on their own in the lack.
Further, there’s a sort of problem when you compare present society with past society. We’ve been working for thousands of years to make each generation live better than the last. Hunger, especially childhood hunger, should hit zero by now.
And those of us who are disabled and can’t work to survive…?
Society will help you ? That’s what it is here for. Everyone has strength and weakness, even a disabled person.
A disabled person would surely die on his own or in the ancient tribes time.
Where is that society to help me? In the form of very small social security checks and lifelong poverty?
Are you starving and homeless despite not being able to provide for yourself? If no, society somehow helped.
Capitalism is a system where you die if nobody needs you to do anything. Nobody needing your help is supposed to be a good thing.
That’s incorrect, it’s a system where you die if nobody wants you to do anything, which is a much lower threshold to clear given how many things can be delegated.
Like, you can make a living making art, which is not necessary but definitely something people want, if you’re good at it.
We need art. Art is what gives life meaning.
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But it gives those who float through life without any practical purpose, purpose. You don’t understand, man! It’s just so deep.
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Probably why the Taliban banned music.
heh, for me that would be bitches 😎
*proceeds to get none*
Lol no it’s not, and I say it as an avid consumer of several different artforms.
Also, even then, you don’t need a specific artist to make it for you, you can make art too.
The fact that art thrives in mercantilist and capitalist societies is a testament to the fact that want, and not need, drives the market.
May I remind you people spend thousands on furry art lol
That’s my point. You don’t need furry art to survive, nobody needs furry artists to make furry art, but people with surplus want them to, and that makes them thrive in a capitalist society.
Capitalism is a system where you die if nobody wealthy needs you to do anything.
Unpaid labour is still labour, and there are unfortunately billions of people living, and dying, in poverty who do an endless stream of labour for other people and their community, from caring for children, elderly, and disabled people, to cooking and cleaning, and providing a whole range of other physical, mental, and emotional support.
Them not being compensated for it is the feature of capitalism, not the need for labour itself, which leads nicely to
Nobody needing your help is supposed to be a good thing.
Actually, no, it isn’t. Humans are interdependent and need each other to function as a society (even on the most a-social level - you’re unlikely to be producing your own food, power, water supply, buildings, building materials, and so on, you need others to live, and at different points in life others will almost certainly need you in different ways). That’s exactly why a hyper individualistic society like capitalism encourages leads to the kind of dystopia we have now.
I think you’re defining “compensation” a bit too narrowly. Just because people are doing work of some kind in their community and not getting monetary wages for it doesn’t mean they aren’t being compensated. All human interaction is in some sense a transaction, it might just be more amorphous and unquantifiable than x many dollars. Friendships are trades. If a friendship isn’t worthwhile for people, they generally end the friendship, even though most people wouldn’t dream of assigning a dollar amount of value to a friendship.
And I think you’re missing the fact that we’re talking about surviving under capitalism, and that you can’t buy food and shelter with friendship 🙄
Of course you can. Lol. Stay-at-home moms and dads are doing this exact thing. Older parents who live with their kids are, too. They’re probably doing something like labor in addition to just being in some kind of human relationship, but they are effectively getting paid for friendship. It would be hard to put an exact dollar amount to this, and most people including myself wouldn’t really want to write an invoice for every hug they give or minute of conversation they’re partner to, but since all human interaction is effectively a transaction that is informally what’s happening.
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Tribal societies valued different things. If they were measuring just based on economical value and “productivity” then tribal societies would have a reputation of having no elders, because they would have all been forced out.
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Thank God we are evolved, huh?
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Why is being useless a good thing, pls elaborate
Cause it means all the work is already being done and there’s enough to go around and meet everyone’s needs.
That’s a terrible behavior to enable, that’s like exactly the opposite of what we want
No, we want everyone to have enough, and to be able to take it easy when the work is done. We don’t want people forced to work when it isn’t helpful.
Work is always helpful, that’s why it exists
Work isn’t always helpful. If my partner got out of bed to clean the dishes or vacuum the floor at 3AM I’d be very cranky. Sometimes work is bad.
…bro it’s cause you said 3am in this example, think this through.
I can’t work due to a disability, am I useless?
yes
Or we could, you know, give free housing, healthcare and food to people who need them. UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it.
UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it.
Sorry, but that is simply not true. Alaska has had a form of UBI for decades funded by oil revenues. It decreased inflation. Canada also has a basic income for families that also hasn’t caused inflation.
With the introduction of this dividend in 1982, Alaska went from having the highest rate of inflation in the US to the lowest. Source
Not to dispute it, but the sources for the Alaska argument are a Twitter post made by the organization itself (which just says that businesses will have discounts when the check goes out) and a Medium post.
And the source used for the argument in the Medium post is a link to another post made by the same author. His proof that UBI reduced inflation is… A line graph of CPI comparing Alaska vs the US.
If the oil dividend caused the decrease in inflation, you would be able to find many scholarly articles on the subject, yet the entire proof is a single graph.
His proof that UBI reduced inflation is… A line graph of CPI comparing Alaska vs the US.
I did do some more digging and found that the graph from Scott Santens is supported by data from the stlouis Federal reserve. See stlouisfed graph
I think its largely common sense that businesses would have sales to when money goes out. The same thing happens when refund checks come out. The author is of course biased, but that it not a reason to discredit the data. Are you suggesting he fudged the numbers for the graph?
If the oil dividend caused the decrease in inflation, you would be able to find many scholarly articles on the subject, yet the entire proof is a single graph.
No one is claiming the dividend caused it because causation is notoriously hard to prove since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation. The author simply provides evidence in a graph that the after the dividend (Alaska’s UBI) Alaska had a noticeably lower inflation rate compared to the rest of the US. Graph in question Take a look and make your own conclusions.
We’re talking about vastly different sums of money and access to infrastructure.
Alaska’s 1600 per year is more akin to a tax refund. It’s not dramatically changing anyone’s income and if it is, they’re barely scraping by regardless.
Alaska is also so remote that everything is more expensive.
If 300 million people suddenly had an extra 24,000 dollars to spend in a year, you don’t think every business in the country would be scrambling to get their cut? Most companies see you as an obstacle between them and their money that you happen to be holding.
Alaska’s 1600 per year is more akin to a tax refund.
It may be on a smaller scale than is traditionally advocated for with a UBI like program, but it is a UBI. According to Wikipedia, the PFD(Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend) is a Basic Income in the form of a resource dividend. Any adult Alaskan resident is eligible for it whether or not they pay taxes. It’s not a tax refund.
If 300 million people suddenly had an extra 24,000 dollars to spend in a year, you don’t think every business in the country would be scrambling to get their cut?
Of course they would be. That is why a lot of business offer sales, when the Alaska dividend check go out. They want to convince you to buy their crap. When businesses want money, they have to convince people to buy their stuff via sales and promotions. That usually means lower prices.
Ok and little league and MLB are technically the same sport but 8 year old Billie Jr isn’t going to be throwing a no hitter at Fenway any time soon.
Technically being the same thing does not mean it will function the same way.
Perfect is the enemy of good in this case. I would much rather have a $100 UBI just to test out the system than have no UBI ever happen because people argue it has to X amount. It is however very important to tie it to inflation so it doesn’t get effectively nickeled and dimed into continual cuts like the minimum wage largely has in many areas.
Yeah, it’s kinda funny. The research papers tend to cite things like “wealth flight” and “housing price plummet” as economic concerns about UBI, yet whenever folks talk about it, we’re all afraid of landlords just raising rent.
I’m not sure on either of them, but watching everyone argue both extreme opposite possible outcomes for it is funny.
I wouldn’t really count the Canada one since it’s not truly “Universal”, but the Alaska one is interesting.
It honestly seems like it’s talking of some utopic society (“Businesses would continue to compete for our money by offering high quality at reasonable prices” - when has that ever happened in the past 20 years?), but it does bring some sources to the table so probably has a point, even if I still see that as overly optimistic.
Anyway mine was just a digression, I’m not going to vote against UBI or anything similar if it ever comes up, I think there’s better solutions but I’m definitely not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Graph showing the last paragraph of my answer. I had to reply with another instance as lemm.ee has disabled images.
You can check the graph from the stlouis fed data and it lines up.
UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it
Says who?
Macroeconomics? If you increase the pool of money people compete to spend on a good or service we can expect the value to increase.
It depends how it’s funded. Strictly speaking that’s only the case if it’s funded monetarily by a central bank printing more money for a government to fund UBI. For example this is how most countries funded businesses and individuals during the pandemic and what has lead to the inflation you’re referring to. Otherwise there is the same amount of money in the economy, it’s just been fiscally re-distributed using a UBI policy. You might still see some inflation in some parts of the economy due to rising demand but if people can afford more, rather than less, this inflation no bearing whatsoever on people’s actual prosperity. If funded fiscally UBI would outstrip any inflation it might incur and therefore actually represent real-terms deflation for the vast majority of people. As a side note, what we are getting at the moment is the exact opposite: money was printed in huge amounts by central banks during the pandemic which largely ended up in the pockets of people who bought up assets like housing and are now out-competing everyone else in the market and extracting yet more profit. It might feel like inflation to us because food and bills have increased in value faster than our wages, but the wealthy have actually been experiencing real-terms deflation because their stash has been growing faster than their costs.
“If funded fiscally UBI would outstrip any inflation”.
Source for this claim please? Its been years but I seem to recall the Roosevelt Institute paper Yang relied on saying something different (worth noting Yang misrepresented this paper).
I don’t have an academic source; it’s my own prediction based on a) what I’ve seen/am seeing in the economy and b) my own personal finances.
I’ll dig it up later but I suspect you have that backwards. As I recall the tax funded UBI produces little to no growth so it shouldn’t cover inflation
I think the best evidence for this claim is past experience with a UBI via the alaska ongoing UBI. Federal reserve graph showing that since alaska implemented its UBI (in 1982) it has had lower inflation than the US at large.
This is actually the opposite of what studies seem to be suggestion.
The fear is, instead, that it will reduce values, especially housing, and that businesses and wealthier individuals would move away. Admittedly, if it’s truly universal, then there would be nowhere for them to move. But the real, often-forgotten underlying gain is that it would create some leverage for employees seeking jobs and raises.
Of course, an “unemployed-only” income would create more employee leverage, possibly matching or exceeding the leverage provided by unions because the employee could afford to strike indefinitely.
“Reduce values”
Which are a fictional thing we invented. How awful, a more equal society where people cannot as easily be superior! Do people really fear such a thing?
I’m really not sure what you think you’re getting out of this reply. Or hell, what you’re even trying to say. But here’s my college try at replying anyway.
Before I get to line-items, I’d like to reiterate that you’re arguing for “pay everyone money” in response to “pay people who aren’t working a living wage” and acting like giving money to the rich makes a more equal society than that. If I had $50k/yr guaranteed any day I wanted if I quit, I’d have a whole lot more leverage to get another $1000/mo from my employer AND be treated well.
How awful, a more equal society where people cannot as easily be superior!
That would be socialism, not a UBI. The economic concerns about UBI are that it will weaken the average quality of life and that every implementation ever pitched has a fatal flaw. Yang’s, for example, would hurt the poor and middle class while not actually redistributing any wealth from the rich. Models also suggest they will be job-killers, and not in the obvious way of giving people leverage.
Do people really fear such a thing?
Yeah, they’re so afraid of socialism they try to create capitalist equivalents like UBI
Yang’s issue is he flipped the tax funded UBI and deficit funded UBI’s growth numbers. There is almost no growth from UBI unless it is money falling from the sky.
Yang’s issue is that he wanted to fund UBI by using it to eradicate welfare. And there were a dozen very solid problems with that he was unwilling or unable to meaningfully address. Some of the families who would need his UBI the most are the same families who would have to opt out because their welfare is valued at more than it.
I used to be all-in for UBI in general, but over the years (thanks in part, but not entirely, to Yang) I walked off that ledge. The government should be guaranteeing housing/food/healthcare the same way they guarantee education. What they should not be doing is cutting a check and shoving fingers in their ears in the welfare equivalent of Privatized Social Security.
What people don’t want to accept is that under UBI, there will still be comparable homelessness to what we see now because a leading (perhaps the #1) cause of homelessness is addiction. The government subsidizing rental and home payments without means-testing would allow even addicts to have a place to sleep at night. Even they deserve that. And yes, there’s inflation “risks” with incentivizing housing or food, but it’s no more or less than with UBI or with just the FCC approving another big merger.
You can’t just cite an entire field and call it an answer. Especially when than field is basically a pseudoscience.
Lol ok buddy. Tell us more about your complete lack of understanding of what science is.
If you make the maths, the direct inflactionary effects of UBI are quite small unless people were getting tens of thousands of dollars per month, and there are indirect effects pushing in the opposite direction (for example, fewer loans hence less money getting created by banks).
You’re making claims that an entire domain supports your conclusion but haven’t even gone to the trouble of making the maths to confirm it - you just assumed.
For example the “average household wealth” in the US is $1,059,470 and the average household size is 2.5, so an UBI of $500 per month for every man, woman and child of the United States (rounded to 300 million because I couldn’t be arsed to find the exact number) would depreciate that wealth (i.e. inflate its nominal worth) by about 1% per year (assuming 12x UBI payments per year). This is are only the first order effect, as indirect effects push in both directions (for example, it will push salaries at the low end higher, which is inflationary but not by much because it’s only lower salaries being affected, and it will reduce number of loans issued which reduces money creation and is thus deflactionary but again the strength of that deflactionary effect depends on actual proportion of loans that are not issued due to UBI making the money available).
All together macroeconomics does not confirm the effect you claim it does (an in fact the Alaskan experiment shows the opposite) but even if you only consider first order effects, it shows an inflactionary effect which is around half of the FED’s anual inflation target, so a mild effect and certainly not justifying the statement that UBI “only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it”.
Macro is the field that would support the idea that giving people more money would increase the sale price of things like housing.
I don’t need to math out the inflationary impacts of UBI to make the claim that Macro backs the idea that giving everyone more money will increase the costs of housing. That’s historically demonstrable.
The Alaskan income bonuses aren’t relevant to this because they aren’t large enough to have distortionary effects.
Inflation and generally every market trying to push the limits of how much they can exploit their customers in every possible occasion.
I mean, if I have to choose between the current situation and UBI I’ll obviously go for that one, I’m not 100% sure it’s not going to work. But if we have to try and radically change society with a very expensive procedure, I’d rather they do it in the most foolproof way possible.
It is vastly simpler for the government to send everyone a check or deposit than to provide free housing, healthcare and food to people and decide who is ‘worthy’ of receiving them. And let’s be honest most social programs in America are the first thing on the chopping block. At least with a UBI, its very easy for the average person to tell when its been cut. If only a few ‘poor’ people participate in a program, it will be a lot easier for the government to cut it than if every legal adult in the country gets it.
Sadly, whipping on people who recieve benefits is a useful and convenient tool to have in reserve for politicians who are failing and need to deflect attention from that.
Yup. I recieve them because I am disabled with a progressive condotion and of course, poor. But I’m lumped in with those called “leeches”. I’m just trying to feed myself and my family. I will shamelessly swipe my EBT card as many times as I must.
I mean, free Healthcare is already being done in most of the first world and free housing is too, albeit in fewer places and with restrictions. Free food is trickier but I’m sure there’s a way to figure it out.
Imo the issue with UBI isn’t that it would get cut, it’s that it wouldn’t get raised according to inflation. It already happens with “conventional” income so I think just flat out giving the product with no adjustments needed is better, it’s not like as time goes on people are gonna need “more houses”.
It is not like it has to be either or anyway. I would certainly support healthcare and other similar programs but would caution against making them overly restrictive. The restrictions of the programs are the problem as they are excessively restrictive to stop people from using the programs. Effectively these restrictions mean only ~1/4 people eligible for assistance actually get it.
See this paragraph from the post authors blog.
Before the pandemic even hit, 13 million Americans were living in poverty entirely disconnected from all federal assistance programs. The best functioning program is our food assistance program which reaches 2 out of 3 people in poverty, and lasts for 3 months every 3 years. Our worst is our temporary assistance for needy families program which varies by state, and in my home state of Louisiana reaches only 4 out of every 100 families living in poverty. Our disability assistance reaches 1 out of every 5 Americans with disabilities, and the average waiting time to qualify is two years. Our housing assistance reaches 1 out of every 4 Americans who qualify. Our unemployment insurance reached about 1 out of every 4 unemployed people in 2019. Over and over again, with targeted program after targeted program, our safety net tends to let three out of every four people fall right through it.
I would just prefer a UBI like program over other alternatives since its focus is on eliminating burdensome restrictions that serve to discourage people from using the existing programs.
I have a progressive illness, my brother in law moved in with myself and my husband. They are both disabled as well, but only one of us can work full time. We would be absolutely fucked without EBT. I am so thankful for it.
Put free education there and we are Gucci.
I am considering skipping trade school, which would be valuable, because I can’t even afford the $10k program.
Imagine the quality of life of the disabled population if they didn’t have to try so hard to get these things. It’s so fucking hard when you can’t work or can only work a little bit.
UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it.
Please expand.
You and everyone you know has an extra $2k dollars per month from UBI. Your landlord raises rents because he knows everyone has 2k more.
In a perfect world your landlord would not be greedy and take that money. He would have actual competition from other landlords willing to rent. We don’t live in a perfect world.
Increasing the money supply causes inflation.
That’s just a repackaged argument against minimum wage. It’s wrong there, too. Market competition is a thing, even for shitty landlords.
In the present day, the vast majority of the money created (over 90%) is created by banks when they give loans (I kid you not: you can read all about it in the paper “Money Creation In The Modern Economy”, from the Bank Of England) so it actually makes sense what seems to have happenned in Alaska (as pointed out by others) that in overall UBI reduced inflation if UBI ended up reducing the number of loans people took.
This effect exceeding the inflation from UBI is probably only possible because it’s a fixed amount per-person rather than a percentage of all the money in circulation, so it’s a small percentage of all the money in circulation (a $660 UBI for every man woman and child in the US would be 1% of M3) and a tiny percentage of all the money in existence (i.e. including wealth held in various non-monetary forms).
So yeah, UBI would create some inflation, but not as much as you seem to think it would and it has side effects that work in the opposite direction which, judging by the experience in Alaska, are strong enough to offset the direct inflactionary effects of UBI.
Spoken like someone who has studied large-scale implementations of UBI. Oh, what’s that? There aren’t any? Hmm.
I wonder if this guy realizes… we don’t actually have a right to exist,
I mean, how would you legislate that? The universe pays a fine everytime it offs somebody?
We don’t have a right to free speech or to bear arms or vote either. Rights are a human invention, based on what we’ve observed makes for a (more or less) functioning society
I’m sorry but this is actually one of the dumbest things I’ve ever fucking read.
Yes, obviously, you cannot legislate reality itself into giving people better lives.
But you can very realistically legislate the political and economic systems which we live in to give people better lives.
I’m sorry but this is actually one of the dumbest things I’ve ever fucking read.
No, it’s one of the most sarcastic things you’ve read. But I assumed the /s was obvious from the whole “no right to exist” part
Guys it’s the natural law enthusiast!
Reminds me of a Ben Franklin quote:
" A Republic, if you can keep it."
Rights are yours only if you can keep it. How? Vote for the people who fight for your rights. Be vocal. When all else fails. Fight for it.
Narrator: “They couldn’t.”
“Rights” only apply to how other humans act.
This is hardly a point.
Capitalists need us to be alive in order to work their machines and build their bridges. The least they could do is make sure we don’t starve to death.
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it. …those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Sure, effectively all land is claimed by some entity, but not to deprive people from being able to make use of it. The US for example needs to claim ownership of its territory to have it recognized by other nations and enforce its own laws. Otherwise, someone could lure you into the wilderness and kill you without penalty like it’s Runescape. And even “owned” land will be subject to emminent domain when the needs of the many demand it.
But buying undeveloped land for homesteading is cheap; you only have to have a token price for depriving the public of its potential value by your reservation. Otherwise, nothing prevents someone from taking it all for themselves for free (which really would leave nothing for others) just to not use it. Even if you did it illegitimately and just started using fresh land without paperwork or anything, you would likely still have recognized rights of ownership through common law squatters rights just by using it effectively for some time. But if you wanted to say, vote, or get mail, or have utilities, or have road access, or otherwise engage with larger society, the government would likely at least want property taxes. After all, getting that to you would take from the pool of resources used for the common good, and you need to contribute a fair share.
If you really wanted to forgo the social contract entirely, nothing is really stopping you from going into deep wilderness 100 miles away from civilization and fending for yourself, but people recognize that the benefits of being a member of society greatly outweigh the costs. Other animals do have to work to live and reserve their own territory. They just don’t use anything as formal as currency for exchanging work for resources, and reap fewer rewards from less specialization.
I personally support UBI but trying to pretend nature is somehow more fair than modern human civilization is just arguing in bad faith. The systems we enjoy are certainly flawed but also undeniably an asset at recognizing the rights of others to live. Nature’s resource distribution system is literally a combination of luck and might makes right.
I personally support UBI but trying to pretend nature is somehow more fair than modern human civilization is just arguing in bad faith.
I don’t think this has anything to do with anything. Nobody’s saying “we should all live in the wilderness but money fucks that up.” We have more than enough to facilitate modern survival for everyone and then some, but we manufacture scarcity while people starve. Because greed.
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Universal basic income does not fix inequality, it doesn’t take existing accumulated wealth into account. You get X amount per month, yay, food. Jeff Bezos gets the same and throws it on the money pile without blinking an eye. It will lead to more inflation and you’ll still be poor compared to who’s wealthy. Socially corrected incomes are a way better tool for battling inequality, and in today’s world’s, it shouldn’t anymore cost a million-person bureaucracy to run a wealth-distributing system either.
If anything they’ll pay loads to smart people who can help them calculate the absolute minimum, taking away your freedom to choose what to eat, when to eat, where to live, how to live etc.
I get the sentiment, but they will create the absolute worst possible outcome as it benefits them the most.
That’s quite a shallow take on the whole thing. Universal Income’s main impacts are indirect and affect the whole of society, for example:
- It allows people to give it a go as inventors or artists at any point of their lifes, rather than the traditional 2 points of “young adult still getting money from your parents” and “having retired (for a few by having made so much money that can retire early) and do what he or she always wanted to do”.
- It places a floor on all incomes. Specifically if Universal Income is high enough so that people can afford housing and food from it alone, nobody will ever accept any jobs paying the same or less - all jobs will have to offer something beyond it to attract any workers.
- Less crime because the sorts of crimes that desperate people commit and other “low yield” petty crimes will pretty much dissapear because they’re not worth the risk and people don’t need to do it.
As for means testing it or not, it really boils down to the complexity and cost associated with means testing: if it’s cheaper if not means tested, why do it? It suspect Jeff Bezos’ “pleasure” in getting Universal Income will be nothing next to what the losses from not to being able to pay shit salaries and treat his workers like shit anymore will make him feel.
With UBI everyone would get it and any salary from a job would be additional. So salaries would go down, but compensated by UBI
Then they’ll tie eligibility for UBI to being employed or seeking if able or having some sort of medical excuse for not being able and we’re back here.
The U in UBI is for unconditional. If there are conditions, it’s not UBI…
Whilst I wouldn’t say that would be the case for certain, it does sound like a genuine possibility for a trully Universal (rather than in name only) UBI.
Those are the advantages of a redistributional, social security safety net income and a minimum wage. UBI does not deliver, because EVERYONE gets it. It is impossible that for example housing prices would stay the same. They’d rise, because now the kid with the rich parent still outbids you: (UBI) vs (UBI + rich parents), the inequality in society stays the same, at best. It would only work if accumulated capital is redistributed equally over everyone as well. Which is communism.
Social corrections to existing system are superior. Not everyone should get the same. Some people need more, some need less.
Yes, everyone should have the right to good housing, food and to live stressfree (that is, with a bit of a financial buffer instead of pay cheque to pay cheque), but UBI will not accomplish that. Social-democratic systems such as Western and northern Europe already have, do, to reasonable extent.
A well implemented UBI would be funded by a progressive tax system that taxes rich people more heavily that anyone else. If that is the case a rich persons taxes would end up increasing more than the UBI amount. At the same time everyone else’s taxes may increase some but the UBI would more than cover the increase. That would lead to a net decrease in inequality.
Social corrections to existing system are superior. Not everyone should get the same. Some people need more, some need less.
A UBI as described above is a social correction. In essence it would redistribute money from those who have plenty of excess money to those who are struggling.
but UBI will not accomplish that.
This is just your opinion. How do you know it won’t accomplish that when it has never been implemented at scale?
Social-democratic systems such as Western and northern Europe already have, do, to reasonable extent.
Ultimately a UBI can achieve a similar end result as the social-democratic systems. The key is in making sure it is implemented well. UBI is just a way of achieving the same goal in a different way.
How would socially corrected incomes work? You tell the government you made $500k this year and they tell you that you can keep $400k?
You’re right that UBI does not create equality, it’s just a floor for basic needs being covered. It’s probably a little more palatable politically (ha) than socially corrected incomes.
I would argue we need other systemic changes like anti-monopoly enforcement, stronger unions and massive worker cooperatives to even start to address inequality, because of the disparity in power.
On top it’s also how the entire tax system works, and for good reason.
You earn 500k.
First 100k: 10% tax. second 100k: 20% tax. … Last 100k: 50% tax.
You make more, you contribute more. That’s how the dream worked very well for a long time. It’s just that the higher tax brackets went down and down and down… giving everyone random money for nothing every month fixes no social inequality issues at all. Potentially making it worse.
You’ve got the “from each according to their ability” part. The tax and welfare system we have now is missing the “to each according to their needs” part. A UBI is literally an overnight thing we can implement now, to vastly improve the lives of the most downtrodden, and it’ll save money in the long run for the government.
Ah, I’ve heard something similar referred to as a progressive tax. Same thing? You’re right, that’s a good policy.
That’s sort of how it works yes. Most western countries already have similar things. If you, for example, make less than 1200 € per month, you get an extra 300 € to get to what is theoretically needed to survive. In Belgium it’s called “leefloon”. In Germany it’s “Burgergeld”. It is the very lowest anyone can “earn”. You only need to prove residence and a few other things (they want to shield the system from recent migrants), the bar for being eligible is very low, the main factor is your (lack of) income. The tier ‘higher’ is unemployment money. It’s a nicer cheque, but you have to “actively search for a job”. You need to have worked and contributed to this system for x years to be eligible. Both exclude people who clearly don’t need a UBI. Which is why it’s superior. There is 0 societal benefit from giving wealthy people more money for no reason whatsoever. The main issue with the existing systems is that taxes for the wealthy and corps got too damn low to support it, and that such systems require a big bureaucracy to verify who is eligible and who isn’t, and to guide them towards social housing, education, jobs etc. Tho the second argument becomes less and less valid in a digital age. 95 % of needed information I’d already in government databases.
In the states I believe the process you’re describing is called “means testing.” It’s how the government determines whether someone can receive food stamps or other government assistance: checking first if they really need it, do they have the means to buy food, etc.
The advantage of UBI is that the question of who has a right to claim the benefit is completely sidestepped, and so is the accompanying bureaucracy and barriers.
You’re right, rich people don’t need UBI. At the same time - much harder to complain about something everyone gets. Much harder to take back a right that all citizens have, than “charity” that only the powerless receive. Harder to call people “welfare queens”.
Pretty sure there’s no basic income for Lions either
Lions eat for free.
The cost is that they hunt it.
Hold up, is that guy suggestion we just fight or kill to take what we want like an animal would?
He contends that all the clay on Earth was claimed long ago. The competition for resources now unfolds according to rules set by individuals, groups or organizations. In some cases, this struggle is even more intense than animal behavior, particularly when it occurs at the organized state level.
Clearly you haven’t seen much of animals.
Some are doing warfare. But we are much better in that.
Please go watch a documentary or two. If you’re looking at your device and just about to flush the toilet right now, you have very little to compare to as a species.
Go and claim some clay.
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Do you have it already?
I assumed he meant we shit everywhere and do away with doctors while we let parasites eat our brain. No half assing this. Quick: let’s chuck all our devices immediately and eat nits.
I mean, I’d totally fight and kill a billionaire if it was by the rule of the jungle, since that way I can’t be incarcerated.
The Billionaire has better odds, tbh. He has more guns, cars, fuel, connections, etc. You’ll have to fight off all his armed guards and family first. If the power structure of mankind stopped working, a whole new one would pop up overnight. One much more brutal where your value is not decided with your input taken into account.
The Billionaire has better odds, tbh. He has more guns, cars, fuel, connections, etc
Not under the rule of the jungle.
In the jungle, you are alone. The people you step over don’t owe anything to you.
Fight a gorrilla or a lion and see if all the others just stand back and watch you attack their boi. The rule of the jungle protects those who have immediate access to resources.
EDIT: I’m actually a believer in Basic Income, but this is a silly argument. Bad arguments do a disservice to the idea of Basic Income and make the battle uphill that much harder.
I read this two days ago when it was posted, and it didn’t sit well with me because it didn’t make sense. I hand to think about it for while about why it didn’t make sense, but I have it now.
Lets break this down:
We’re the only species who must pay to existWe’re really the only species that uses money regularly. So at first glance the literal statement is true but irrelevant: We’re the only species that must pay, because we’re the only species that uses money. So the literal definition is that other species don’t have to pay. True, but they don’t get to use money to store work. Our society has determined that “money” is a method to store “work”.
What the author is saying in spirit is: We’re the only species who has to work to exist.
If indeed I have the author’s meaning right, then this is clearly false. Every other species has to do some level of work to exist. Even parasites will not have a second generation without working to procreate. This brings us to the author’s next statement:
In a private property system where all the land was claimed by others before we were born, and everything we need to stay alive costs money....If you’re willing to lower yourself to an animal that doesn’t use money with all of the freedom and consequences that comes with that, you don’t need to spend a time on land, food, shelter or ANYTHING. There are huge swaths of land all over the world where you could live in the wilderness likely your entire life and never see another human being who will bother you. Most of northern Canada and northern Russia and completely unpopulated for hundreds of hectares. Same with lots of the middle part of Australia. If you’re willing to live off the land without modern medicine, communication, entertainment, or societal infrastructure then there’s no one out there to force you to pay for anything.
The author goes off the rails in suggesting an non-human species, which has no benefits of humanity, has to pay for nothing but lives and dies off the land and at the will of other predators and nature, is equal to the life of a human in modern society with modern medicine, agriculture, law, defense, technology and entertainment.
To the author: If you want to live like a non-human species (an animal) there are plenty of places you can do that. No one will stop you. No one will make you pay anything. Have at it!
If you want the benefits of other people’s work in a society, then you have to contribute something back to that society that society values.*EDIT: I’m removing the last sentence because it needs more context for a much larger argument. The rest of my post stands.Henry George had it right - Just Tax Land
