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There have been some pretty extensive studies that indicate that when you give poor people money, they become less poor. When you give poor people enough money to live on, they stop being poor. It’s a radical concept, but it’s also the truth.
I read a study arguing that each time someone utters the letters U, B, and I, currency devalues itself by one thousand fold, chunks of the sky rain down on metropolitan centers, and everyone instantly becomes fat, lazy, and uninterested in any activities except playing video games.
Yup I died because you said it, so thanks for that.
If not myself, then someone else. Blame the system, not the individual.
If it had to he anyone, im glad it was you!
To be clear, I have no issue with most people working while others do not and live off the system. I think most people will still want to do that something.
UBI isn’t going to do that.
You can point to a handful of small scale studies that show more money works, and yes, on a small scale that is exactly what you’d expect to happen.
This does not work when everyone has that same income. It’s not a matter of 99% of people making smart choices, because I concede that the vast majority of people with sudden access to additional income would spend it wisely.
The issues are twofold.
A) when the people who’ve made it their career to suck every penny out of every possible person know that there are suddenly more pennies to be had, they’re going to raise prices. It’s frankly foolish and shortsighted to expect prices to remain the same or only raise a little. This issue is not raised with small scale experiments. So regardless of their obvious success, they’re not telling the whole story.
2). UBI does absolutely nothing to address the problems it’s actually trying to solve. All it does is print a check every month as a bandaid for some serious problems that will certainly persist. You can’t fix housing without building housing. Individual healthcare will still be tied to your job. College education will be prohibitively expensive and require staffing a lifetime of debt, and we’ll still throw away an obscene amount of food, and people will still go hungry. The only thing that will probably get better is more children will have a secure diet.
And none of that assumes prices would inflate the way they absolutely will. Because even if UBI happened, the people who want all the money the working class has aren’t suddenly going to think it’s ok to leave dollars unspoken for.
The cost of college will steadily increase by about the amount kids are expected to have been able to save by the time they get there. Rent prices will go up to accommodate the new found freedom of spending. And that’s the stuff you have a choice on. You think Comcast will see people with so many extra dollars a month and think “well our customers don’t have another option but we’ll let them keep all that money?”
UBI is just a ticket to absolute dependency on a government check for 99% of Americans, and less financial freedom.
Address the actual problems, don’t just slap a half baked bandaid on it
The claim of UBI leading to runaway inflation is a myth given by reactionary propaganda.
UBI would represent a major advance for the working class. Advocating against it seems impossible to reconcile with any attitude that is not accelerationist.
Much of your commentary seems to reproduce mythical tropes such as of the “welfare queen”.
Seeking meaningful contribution to society is a robust human tendency. Doing so under constant threat from greedy employers is not necessary.
Something is not propaganda because you disagree with it.
I also make it clear in literally my first sentence that people living off the system without working is fine, but that most people probably won’t.
I’m not sure you actually read the post you’re responding to.
Something is not scientific fact because you declare it to be.
There’s scientific facts, economic reality, and then there’s the pipe dream that suddenly corporations will be less greedy just “cuz” under UBI.
I have heard many different opinions about UBI.
I have never heard any suggestion that it would make corporations less greedy.
Perhaps your objection is directed at a strawman.
I responded to the text of your comment, and my concern about your opening sentence is not its lacking truth, as much as the litany of untruthful claims you later made in contradiction.
So no, you didn’t.
I did. Your comment is littered with mythical tropes. Even the opening is suspect, due to the suggestion of people wanting to “live off the system”.
Most want simply that their lives be not dominated by systems that are abstract, absurd, or inhuman.
Even if some cope differently than you, perhaps consider not judging so narrowly.
I would think UBI would be implemented to track inflation. I also assume it would be funded by progressive taxes, not just spinning up the printing presses (which would cause inflation). Effectively, it would be a wealth redistribution program cycling money from corporations and the rich down to the poor.
I really don’t trust the government (which is pretty much captured by corporations) to implement it well though. They’d probably give everyone just enough money to barely survive, without health care, in a van down by the river or something.
If you check my post history everywhere, I’m pretty anti-UBI. But the reasons you pitched are both problematic to me.
You “A” point… I don’t like capitalism, but when there isn’t a monopoly, increased customer-base doesn’t have the effect you’re thinking without scarcity. More people able to afford more means more businesses can compete for business. The price increases would come from paying for the increased worker leverage, and those wouldn’t be drastic.
The opposite effect is true in some sectors. Studies suggest (consistently) that UBI cause so-called “wealth-flight”, which reduces the value of housing and reduces the cost of living… But also reduces quality of life by reducing availability of things. The thing is, a little bit of socialism would counteract wealth-flight, as would a situation where the wealth is not in a position to leave freely.
Your “2” point is false. There are a lot of MAJOR cons to UBI, but studies suggest UBI would have a positive effect on housing affordability and worker leverage. Other than healthcare, your concerns don’t seem to match the models and the studies. My add-on concern, however, is addiction. Poverty starvation isn’t a risk under most UBI plans, but addict starvation still is.
When “what can I afford to pay” is one of the dominant market forces on anything but luxury, capitalism becomes dangerously fragile and businesses know it. They want to maximize profit, but they do so against demand and competition.
And none of that assumes prices would inflate the way they absolutely will
Most economists don’t think UBI would cause all that much inflation. Increasing a customer-base is not the same as increasing demand. There’s no addition of scarcity. Food prices don’t go up if we don’t run out of food - and we have so much food going to waste that isn’t going to happen. Same with housing and rent. The question isn’t “how much can the sucker afford to pay me”, it’s “how much can we get for this?”. Affordability is only one factor in that, and generally considered a “problem” to all parties when that factor applies. So long as businesses are not MORE consolidated (see above UBI concerns) prices are still market-driven - driven by competition and acceptability.
It’s valid to not LIKE capitalism. I hate it. But we should still understand it before criticizing things.
The cost of college will steadily increase by about the amount kids are expected to have been able to save by the time they get there
This is simply not factual. One thing people miss is that college profit margins have been on a slow decline (and in the single-digits since 2016). They’re NOT charging more based on how much they think they can sucker out of people. They’re charging what they do based on the friction of “making enough money to thrive” and “charging low enough that people are willing to come here”. Yes, cost of college might go up slightly, but not in the way you’re talking. Again, the issue is that “affordability” is a terrible market force and rarely the one these types of businesses care about.
UBI is just a ticket to absolute dependency on a government check for 99% of Americans, and less financial freedom
There is no study or model that says UBI will give us LESS financial freedom. The real argument is that it won’t give more financial freedom to most Americans, and the cost is prohibitive for that limited gain.
Address the actual problems, don’t just slap a half baked bandaid on it
Short of “no questions asked unemployment benefits for life”, there aren’t really any solutions to many of the problems on the table. Ultimately, all Americans, all humans, deserve a life of all necessities AND some luxuries.
At this time, nobody is seriousliy trying to solve for luxuries except UBI, and nobody is seriously trying to solve for organic worker-leverage except UBI (unions will never be the full answer).
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Without capitalism, we don’t really need UBI because we can just go more socialist.
You don’t need “more money” if society guarantees your quality of life with no strings attached.
You still need a system of currency as individuals should be allowed to use their skills to barter.
I never said you didn’t. Money is a great way to barter labor for luxury when you exist in a system where you can never starve. Nobody is saying the government should cover Wagyu beef for every meal, or free yachts for people.
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Agreed! This thread is specifically following that “cash in hand” is not what guarantees people quality of life - housing and food are. If someone has all a reasonable quality of life provided for free, “extra cash” is less urgent.
I mentioned elsewhere that I think a government run supermarket would do a lot of good for grocery pricing. My thought was that we’d all get EBT (no means-testing) and the government could save money by running its own supermarket, while simultaneously forcing down the prices of private supermarkets. That is a good compromise that lets us keep a cash basis for food stamps (like everyone seems to prefer over vouchers) while still preventing any concerns people have with EBT affecting prices.
I’m fairly confident that corporations would argue that corporations are people, and therefore should get their allotment of UBI at a rate of one full income per stock share, and they’d probably win that argument too, considering the state of our legislature. Then they would argue that actual people getting their share of UBI is harming corporate profits and get UBI cancelled for everyone except the largest corporations. We still have land reaping subsidies not to grow crops from the New Deal, and all that land has made its way into the hands of the wealthy.
There are real risks of a badly-designed UBI, and it unfortunately locks us more into capitalism instead of less, but innovators giving up on innovation is not one of them.
A badly designed instance belonging to any class may be bad, regardless of the class.
I advocate for UBI, and also, I advocate for UBI that is not badly designed.
Whether the working class seeks to leverage its advantages to depose capital depends on the will and resolve of workers as a class, but in the meantime, advocating against saving, improving, and empowering workers is some combination of apologia and accelerationism.
A badly designed instance may be bad, regardless of the class of designed entities to which the instance belongs.
Not many “designated entities” cost more than quarter of a nation’s GDP, nearly the entire current tax burden of that nation and wouldn’t meet most people’s economic burden. The problem with a UBI is how much of a systematic overhaul it really is. The cost to simply feed, clothe, and house all Americans is an order of magnitude cheaper than a modest UBI. About the only win UBI might have is by “tricking” the Right into supporting it when they’d go nuclear against something reasonable… But the loss UBI might have is by “tricking” the Left to support it when it secretly reads like a Right Wing fantasy. Pro-capitalism, excuse to remove or hobble other protections. And “personal responsibility” BS when an addict uses the UBI check to buy alcohol or fentanyl instead of food.
I advocate for UBI that is not badly designed.
Got an example? I used to be a HUGE fan of UBIs, but every time I read one, I struggled with these massive gaps. The three biggest issues I see with UBIs are:
- In the US at least, the primary taxpayers are also the highest cost of living. Many of those in poverty in places like Manhattan or Boston are likely to have their economic position unaltered from UBI (and in the case of Yang’s plan, would have to opt out of UBI). The common answer I see to this is “move to a Red state”. I don’t want to tell a poor minority they need to move away from their family to Arkansas to make ends meet.
- Many UBIs are inordinately financed by the poor and/or middle-class. This is not a win to me me.
- I’m of the position that the biggest problem with the economy is “market inefficiency”, or to be specific, the profit margins of businesses. The reason the “everyone has housing and food” cost would be $2T, but a conservative UBI would be $4T is the $1T going in the pockets of an entire chain of middlemen, wholesalers, and resellers. If we fix that, UBI becomes less important because we’ve already started socializing. If we don’t fix that, I don’t see UBI being effective.
advocating against saving, improving, and empowering workers is some combination of apologia and accelerationism
You overplay here. I actually agree that the one unquestionable benefit of a UBI is worker leverage. But I think questioning a MULTI-TRILLION-DOLLAR plan that might do nothing but create worker leverage among one class of workers is extremely reasonable, far from apologia. And on the contrary, I think a UBI plan could itself be accelerationism.
And I say “one class of workers” because I mean it. The farther someone gets from their State’s minimum wage, the less leverage a UBI would provide. I’m not talking people making $1M/yr, but people making $45,760 (the US Median Wage). Someone making that much money doesn’t get much (any?) labor benefit from a UBI, but they are likely to be contributing to it in their taxes. See my problem?
EDIT: I’d like to re-summarize. For the cost of every UBI I’ve seen, we could afford to provide food, clothing, homes, and healthcare to every man, woman, and child in the United States, while still having billions or even trillions to spare. A check for $1000/mo, even $2000/mo can’t afford all those things.
For the cost of every UBI I’ve seen, we could afford to provide food, clothing, homes, and healthcare to every man, woman, and child in the United States, while still having billions or even trillions to spare. A check for $1000/mo, even $2000/mo can’t afford all those things.
The cost is the same. Money is the commodity created as the universal exchange. There is no other kind of asset suited for universal distribution that would empower everyone to access the essential commodities distributed through markets.
In fact, framing the issue in terms of cost is misleading. UBI is not the creation of any new resource or asset with intrinsic value. It is simply a political declaration, enforced administratively, that corporations and oligarchs may not hoard to such a degree that others are needlessly deprived.
Before replying to your points, I’d like to clarify that you missed the opportunity to win the discussion with a single answer. I’ll offer that again. Show me an actual UBI plan that I would not see as broken or secretly a Lib-Right utopia. Yang’s isn’t it. I’m not against the concept of a UBI. I’m against every version I’ve ever seen, and YES the price of every version of it.
The cost is the same. Money is the commodity created as the universal exchange
That’s simply untrue. Medicare is proof of that (approximately 143% higher per capita cost for equivalent benefits). Social Infrastructure that does not seek profit will consistently beat infrastructure that does by a large margin. Every day of the week. No need for marketing costs, for wholesale costs, etc. No need for stock prices or a happy board. Hell, I just have to compare the price of my wife’s garden-to-table tomato sauce vs the price of buying a jar. $5 in tomato seeds and 5hrs total of her time makes us about 100 jars of sauce. Even including the price of the jar and transport, there is a gap between material+labor cost and retail cost larger than the cost itself. UBI continues to feed that gap, but socializing can whittle it down. There was once a day that capitalism was about “we can be more efficient at scale, so it’s cheaper to buy groceries than make them yourself”. B2B still works that way. But consumer purchases do not, and never will again.
We could feed every American a balanced diet for approximately $25B/yr with socialized groceries. We can house every American for approximately $100B/yr (extrapolated cost to end homelessness by the homelessness rate) by making government housing something “not just for the poor”. Universal healthcare is conservatively estimated to cost about $1T/yr in the net (progressive estimates argue it’ll overall be a net societal gain within a year or two due to how much money the government has to subsidize various parts of the healthcare industry anyway)
Combined with incidentals, that’s less than $1.5T. Where a $1k/mo UBI would cost $4T and nobody honestly estimates it will solve the above problems.
In fact, framing the issue in terms of cost is misleading. UBI is not the creation of any new resource or asset with intrinsic value
With all due respect, I don’t know what you’re trying to argue now. Of course UBI is not the creation of a new resource or asset. It’s just a plan that taxes America to redistribute wealth blindly. And the fact that Jeff Bezos will probably get a larger check from UBI than he is taxed is on nobody’s radar.
It is simply a political declaration, enforced administratively, that corporations and oligarchs may not hoard to such a degree that others are needlessly deprived.
I’ve yet to see a UBI that would cost oligarchs even a penny, and nowhere in the UBI philosophy would it hit corporations at all. And it’s not “simply” anything. The “simply” political declaration against oligarchs is a strong millionaire tax. The whole goal of UBI is to fund people, so I find it interesting that you just described it in terms that didn’t even mention that.
I’d like to clarify that you missed the opportunity to win the discussion with a single answer. I’ll offer that again. Show me an actual UBI plan that I would not see as broken or secretly a Lib-Right utopia.
You are framing discussion around an appeal to purity and an argument from ignorance.
Your tactics are not supportive of productive discussion.
You also have attempted to negate conceptual relations that are essentially beyond controversy through statistics and Gish gallops.
Yeah UBI would solve this. This might be a criticism of contemporary capitalism, but it isn’t a critique of capitalism more broadly because in principle, capitalism can have a UBI.
More fruitful anti-capitalist critiques emphasize workplace authoritarianism, the employer’s appropriation of the whole product of a firm, monopoly power associated with private ownership especially of land and natural resources, and inability to effectively allocate resources towards public goods
A strike can last much longer if workers are not worried about their bread and roof.
Even without organization, a secure worker can bargain harder for higher wages and better conditions.
Aaaaand there it is, the reason they fight so hard to keep you from that security.
Nonviolence won’t solve this.
I hope that the worst kinds of conflict prove avoidable, but historically, there is always someone who fires the first shots.
The Haymarket affair illustrates the matter quite well.
Rights are won with blood, not money; those with money need no rights, and those who need rights have no money.
Good news is that a UBI doesn’t provide enough for most people to keep striking.
What would really kill them if if that money were focused on unemployment. Actually incentivize people to not work (permanently if they want) so they have free automatic leverage. You wouldn’t mean minimum wage anymore because companies would be begging you to work.
I prefer “plans for all” in most things, but I actually think housing+food+healthcare for all but Basic Income for unemployed only would be ideal.
Imagine if one day every minimum-wage worker woke up and was told they’d make $30k/yr by putting in their resignation. Bet you workplace quality would skyrocket and companies would start offering living wages yesterday.
Course, that’s why that won’t happen either, I guess.
Even a UBI specifically for food- food stamps for all- would make a massive change and improve millions of lives.
This could have negative effects similar to what has been seen in communist countries where vendor lock-in leads to weakened quality control if not every company can accept those food vouchers.
It’s good to allow people freedom of choice.
UBI would be at its best as a static lump sum of money.
Every supermarket already accepts food stamps. Expanding the program wouldn’t change that.
How about any small business? If the process of being able to accept food stamps has bureaucracy, you’ll end up locking out small companies unable to meet requirements or who cannot afford it.
Food stamps at scale could also lead to stores opting for the cheapest alternatives. Salaries will ultimately scale down through supply and demand to a point where people will have less money, but now they’ll have stamps. This in turn can hurt innovation and competition as newer products tend to cost more and people will need make stamps suffice for daily food.
A money-based UBI is safer as you’ll ultimately see smaller salaries, but the amount of money you’ll have per month will remain static. This gives freedom of choice. Not to mention people also need homes, clothing and other daily goods in exchange for money.
Any business selling food can accept food stamps. There’s no barrier to accepting them. I’m not sure why you think any food-selling business would be left out.
I think they don’t actually understand SNAP and they think you’re talking about literal vouchers like it’s an alternate physical currency.
In principle, and even in it’s intended general practical application, I agree with you.
But in America, I can see both parties getting on board with a UBI, only because they’ll use it to gut all other social welfare programs.
Need healthcare? UBI
Hungry? UBI
UBI can’t pay for both at once? Tough shit. We abolished EBT and Medicare to pay for UBI.
All must be won by struggle. Elites never surrender privilege only by being asked.
EBT is a flat 200 a month at most and the ongoing application process is humiliating Kafkaesque bullshit I wouldn’t wish on anyone after experiencing it, so I think it would work just fine to shut it down and fold it into a UBI, would be nice and simple and without complications. Health insurance on the other hand, cost varies wildly by circumstance but is generally more expensive, and because of incentives, price negotiations, all the bullshit involved with the system would be way more efficient and cost effective to have a universal healthcare program instead of giving out money to buy into a private insurance industry.
Fortunately, this seems to be recognized in most serious discussions about UBI. Almost everyone quickly acknowledges that the idea of replacing healthcare programs in particular with UBI is stupid. The UBI proposals I’ve seen that got any attention were explicit that it does not replace those. I don’t think it’s realistic they would actually try to replace Medicare with UBI.
SNAP benefit in my state can easily exceed $1000/mo for a single mother. Nobody has a UBI plan that pays for children (at least full). Housing subsidies in my state average around $750/mo. We’re nearing twice what a typical UBI plan gets you. And that’s the stable stuff. If UBI is replacing welfare, some people are either screwed or have to opt out, while still being on the hook for paying for it in their taxes.
The problem isn’t just about healthcare, unfortunately. UBI has many fatal flaws unless you put it on top of universal-life (housing, groceries, necessities, health). But once you have all those other things for free, there are valid arguments that society has paid at least part of its due to you. So sure, a $100-200/mo UBI so everyone can afford some luxury. I’d be into that.
The core issue, btw, is that cost of living is inconsistent. In some areas, $12,000 is Middle Class. In others, $48,000 is “living wage”. So under a UBI, some poor people get rich, sure, but some poor people get poorer.
Nobody has a UBI plan that pays for children (at least full)
The partial ones are all more than SNAP benefits for a single child.
Housing subsidies in my state average around $750/mo.
Who is getting a free 750 for rent? I’ve never heard of anyone getting a deal like that, I sure never got government assistance with rent, I assume whatever that’s for is hard to qualify for, and there are many many people who need/deserve that kind of help but won’t get it. One of the biggest issues with any government benefits program is that, if you know the people who need it most and what they’re capable of, and know what it takes to go through the process, it’s clear they’re never getting it. The system is designed to keep them out.
On the other hand, housing subsidies in particular could synergize very well with UBI, because the biggest mandatory expense for most people is housing, and anything incentivizing the creation of new housing will bring costs down, thus decreasing the necessary amount to allow people to live off it. So it would work better to have those kinds of programs in tandem instead of replacing them, although I would also like a direct focus on new construction and crashing the housing market.
The core issue, btw, is that cost of living is inconsistent. In some areas, $12,000 is Middle Class. In others, $48,000 is “living wage”. So under a UBI, some poor people get rich, sure, but some poor people get poorer.
Unfortunately this one is a pretty tricky issue, because any regionally targeted benefits induce market distortions. It is impossible for everyone who would like to live in NYC for example to be free to live in NYC, access is gated by money currently, and must be gated by something due to the impossibility of fitting enough people to satisfy demand. Giving everyone the ability to live most places regardless of income is itself a massively good thing, even if it doesn’t enable everyone to be in their preferred location (which currently the vast majority can’t anyway, people get priced out of regions constantly). Ultimately I don’t buy the idea that there’s a significant population of the poor that would be getting poorer, I think the majority of people now struggling financially are not really getting much help outside of healthcare.
The partial ones are all more than SNAP benefits for a single child.
Except not really. I have a friend who used to work in SNAP. I picked a lot of random “anonymous” family samples and a surprisingly large number of them would be forced to opt out of Yang’s UBI. That’s actually what got from from all-in on UBI to “show me one that works”.
Who is getting a free 750 for rent?
For eligible families, Massachusetts Section 8 housing subsidizes 100% of the difference between 30% adjusted family income and the FMR of the household. The highest FMR in Massachusetts is $3,608 (Suffolk County 4BR… probably need 3 kids to qualify). If you make $48,000/yr in Suffolk County that means you are eligible for approximately $2,600 in Section 8 rent assistance.
Note, Section 8 makes an apartment 100% means-priced, so anyone can move in to any apartment in the state so long as it’s section 8 approved and their income is under the somewhat generous thresholds. Here’s a summary.
And the thing is, while that’s the highest, numbers at or above $1000 are typical Section 8 figures. There are a lot of cons to Section 8, but for those who utilize it, it is always going to blow Yang’s UBI out of the water. Which means if declining all welfare is a requirement to accept UBI, nearly 100% of poor people in Massachusetts would find themselves opting out of the UBI. But most of them would still be taxed for it.
hard to qualify for, and there are many many people who need/deserve that kind of help but won’t get it
Not really. But it’s hard to qualify landlords for. It’s one of those rare situations where landlords have to prove they’re a viable residence, and many don’t have any interest in Section 8 because they’ve been burned by the increased risk of renters damaging things. But there’s always available rentals.
EDIT: To clarify, it’s still means-tested with red-tape. I am a strong advocate to remove all means-testing and the stigma around welfare, to grow it to a QOL baseline instead of a safety net. Importantly, even without means-testing it has certain advantages like guaranteeing apartment quality and holding landlords to task.
Unfortunately this one is a pretty tricky issue, because any regionally targeted benefits induce market distortions
Exactly. This is why I’m a huge fan of regionally independent benefits, like classic-EBT subsidized food. It can get complicated, but it can cut across the country and prevent someone from getting rich by living in Mississippi while renting a closet in NYC. Something like Section 8 would do a great job of this if it wasn’t means-tested because then anyone would be able to afford to live anywhere they chose. Obviously rich people in Martha’s Vineyard wouldn’t like that.
I use that reference because there IS Section 8 housing available on the Vineyard, and the rich people aren’t dying over it :)
Ultimately I don’t buy the idea that there’s a significant population of the poor that would be getting poorer
Fair enough that you can feel how you want. You probably don’t live on one of the many areas where the math is so clearly one-sided it’s depressing. $12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US… But those areas happen to have the highest homelessness rates in the country.
$12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US
I’ve had income less than that most my life so yeah, idk, it seems like a lot to me.
But there’s always available rentals.
Is that really true? So if you’re poor you can basically live in Massachusetts for free? Has to be some catch. So many desperate people around who would want that. And if the answer is that most of them just don’t know about it, that not-knowing must be a part of how it’s able to be sustained.
Ultimately for me the whole issue is about freedom. If someone is trapped in a job or relationship they don’t want, finances shouldn’t be any barrier to saying no. Not understanding how welfare systems work, not being willing to subject yourself to the process or being too ashamed or whatever, should not be a barrier to getting help. People shouldn’t have to be paranoid about anything that might make them more money because they’re going to have to go through a lot of paperwork as a result and maybe end up worse off. It shouldn’t be possible to use someone’s struggle to survive as leverage to make them work.
This is what scares me about UBI. Yang’s plan was going to hurt (or just not benefit) a lot of families in New York, Massachusetts, California, and other net-producing locations. The list of those least-benefitting from a UBI matches the list of areas with the highest poverty and homelessness rate. That, to me, is unacceptable.
The moment you have a UBI plan that poor has to contribute to and then opt out of, you just have another system that’s screwing the poor.
South American experiments with printing money make the studies hard to believe. You can’t simply give people money without causing a devaluation in said money. You have to take it away from the market somehow (so, tax the shit out of the rich)
You can’t simply give people money without causing a devaluation in said money.
The government surely can.
The government has the power to levy taxes.
The government has comprehensive powers for regulating the value of currency, through control over the money supply.
At any rate, the government printing money for workers cannot possibility be worse for workers than the government printing money for businesses, as it is doing now.
I suppose, though, you might take comfort in how inflation now is being so effectively prevented, instead of causing needless human suffering.
Ok, this time I am following you. Because I feel really strongly like there’s a lot more we’d agree on than disagree.
In this case, I agree 100% with everything you said.
And I think one common factor in both of our goals is that we shouldn’t be afraid of the government stepping in and preventing capitalism from grinding our poor into dust. We should be fighting for a government that cares more about the well being of its people than the Nasdaq.
Can’t agree with this enough. It drives me crazy when people think the Government should be run like a business. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, and really shows that people don’t use their critical thinking skills.
Businesses shouldn’t even be run like businesses. Employees should never have to be just numbers on an xls file.
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Have you considered the actual reasons, to such a degree that you could share with us how you understand as meaningful the comparison with UBI?
Alternatively, are you simply deflecting thoughtlessly with a false analogy?
False analogy? People get free money all the time with lotteries and welfare. UBI is another word for welfare. We clearly know what people do with welfare. The lottery is like a big welfare check. And we know what they do with that too.
You wrote, “Why do most big lottery winners end up broke?”
I asked, “Have you considered the actual reasons?”
You have not answered.
So, have you considered the actual reasons, why most big lottery winners end up broke?
What are the reasons?
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The conversations often feel like spinning tires in mud, but it’s still fun to see how much gets kicked up.
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BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T EARN THE MONEY. This isn’t hard. There are numerous articles, papers, and podcasts on the topic. When you don’t earn something, you don’t respect it. I thought your question was rhetorical because it’s so asinine.
Are you aware of any cases of unearned income or wealth that would not strongly support your generalization, particularly any that may relate to the themes mentioned in the post?
This is why the US government runs the mail service, since it guarantees delivery to every address, no matter how remote, even if at a loss.
This is why education should stay a government service, so that schools exist for every student, even when a given class is too small.
And this is why medicine will always need a socialized element, since rare diseases are not profitable enough to treat.
Why is the literacy rate lower than it was before the DoE was created?
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Privatisation hounds do the same shit all over: enshittify a public service then offer a private alternative as a kind of shitty trojan savoir to the problem they created
Because it isn’t? It’s up by about 6%. The numbers are more accurate as well.
Frankly, even if your statement was correct, it would be the equivalent of asking why only people who go to the doctor have cancer.
Lastly, if we are throwing out random facts and trying to extrapolate the value of a system, why is Cuba’s literacy rate always close to 100%?
Official government numbers, of an authoritarian government that considers it’s education system a point of pride, self-reported in government census, by citizens afraid to criticize their government, after being filtered for those that received formal education.
Sounds a lot like the North Korean voter turnout to me…
Some of what you said is true, some of it is bull shit. The numbers have been corraberated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, as well as World Bank. Cuban’s really do have an exceptionally high, near 100%, literacy rate. Though many are at what America would call an “advanced first grade level”. So its not exactly perfect. But percentage wise, almost all Cubans can read. Which can’t be said for American citizens.
However, their education system does strongly push political beliefs, so it is not simply for the betterment of the citizens. It tries to encourage a world view favorable to the government. Using literacy as a way to teach “what to think”. (Not that the United States can throw stones from our glass house… I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States, etc. etc).
That being said, to compare Cuba to North Korea is hyperbolic to the extent that it is obvious you are either trying to be inflammatory, or are simply clueless.
Regardless, my point was that the value of something can not be pulled from a single data point. So in your haste to discredit a country you dislike, you kinda helped me prove my original point, so thanks!
P.S. What’s wrong with the education system being a point of pride? I wish the US took more pride in ours frankly.
Beautifully put, thank you
Probably some combination of our definition of literacy being adjusted, and the availability of more accurate data about populations and how educated they are.
Great question, why is it always Republican States as well?
The bastians of the homeschooling movement that allows household chores to be considered curriculum because of a campaigned for lack of oversight is also where there are low literacy rates? Say it isn’t so…
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All money is free. It is not taken from some limited store, but rather created by government, freely.
The value, stability, and legitimacy of money is sustained by the supremacy of state power. By such power, the government both determines the supply and shapes the distribution of money, and is assured never to be insolvent.
No distribution of money is natural or naturally superior.
Money is a social construct directed by political will.
Price inflation currently occurring is largely due to the political choice to distribute money to corporations.
That is, as a consequence of particular political choices, the already imbalanced distribution has become even more unfavorable toward workers.
If the political will were rather toward distributing money to workers, then prices may follow a pattern of gradual inflation, but as long as workers’ income keeps pace, workers would not be harmed by it even in the slightly.
Money is not free. The cost of new money is devaluation of old money.
Devaluation is not a cost.
It is, however, a consequence of expanding the money supply.
In turn, however, expansion of supply is not a threat, because of the various capacities for the government to withdraw money, as through taxation, or central bank policy.
You do seem offended. Whatever are you talking about?
I don’t see your point other than an explicit joy in the suffering of others. Do I have that right? You think people should go hungry for your personal pleasure?
They must be having a miserable time to get so much out of other people suffering, but that’s in line with most reactionary asses I’ve met.
I recommend you read about Modern Monetary Theory. The US has Monetary Sovereignty in a fiat currency, and therefore is not limited by taxation when it comes to federal funding. Instead, the US is limited by the real economy, which is worth trillions of dollars more than the federal budget. If the federal government stopped with the federal budget and just spent on the real economy, it wouldn’t impact inflation in any way. We do this already with the military, like outspending the USSR on military tech for a decade, sending hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment to Ukraine, and spending billions to support Israel’s genocide.
I’m guessing facts won’t work here. The “consequences” he’s laughing about are a consistent >100% ROI on welfare. He’s laughing because he’s proud conservatives are hurting the economy (and even their own bank accounts!) by hurting the poor, either out of willful ignorance or willful malice.
Reactionaries are not hurting the economy.
They are hurting the working class, including themselves, while helping the oligarchs.
Why, you may ask, do they hurt themselves, and help the oligarchs?
The reason is that they always do what the man on the television screen tells them.
Reactionaries are not hurting the economy.
Weakening welfare hurts the economy. That’s what he’s laughing about. Welfare has always been the biggest no-brainer in economic theory. It always makes the country more than you spend. Even the wealthy.
Why, you may ask, do they hurt themselves, and help the oligarchs? The reason is that they always do what the man on the television screen tells them.
Do you know many conservatives, for real? I’m not talking Trump-heads. I’m talking actual conservatives. There’s this underlying attitude that the world is a “free” place where you work hard and earn your way to betterment. You hear it in the voices of the older generation, but also the newer generation, when they talk about things like “work ethic”, or someone being “too proud to beg” when there’s a disaster and family or friends try to offer help. Have you never heard anyone say “I don’t want nothin for free”, or tell their boss “I don’t need that kinda money, just pay me ____ and I’ll be happy”? I’ve seen and heard all those things.
One way to look at conservativism is that it’s means based, where the Left is more ends based. A conservative cares more about “doing the right thing” than “making the world a better place”, They see the government’s place as “enforcing peace” and nothing else, so social programs seem like a giant mandated charity to them.
Conservatives rarely oppose welfare because they think it doesn’t work. They oppose welfare because they think it’s wrong whether it works or not. And that’s not a talking head telling them that, it’s decades of growing up surrounded by that same hierarchical mindset.
Like John F Kennedy said “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Ask what you can do for your country”. There’s people who take that to heart and feel it’s not the country’s job to make their life a better place. And will allow themselves to sink into poverty holding on to that belief.
They’re horribly wrong, but if you don’t understand why they feel that way, it’s hard to help move the country forward.
There is no “The Economy”.
Weakening welfare hurts workers.
There is no “The Economy”.
There really is. Even without capitalism, the median buying power of an individual will always be a thing.
Weakening welfare hurts workers.
Obviously. It hurts everyone, so of course it hurts workers.
The fuck you on about, mate?
socialized healthcare will still be better at popular diseases. None of the approaches are particularly good for rare disease sufferers. But socialized is not a silver bullet.
The point is that private healthcare is driven by the profit motive.
The state is the only institution under our current social organization both that carries capacities at the same scale as corporations, and that legitimately may be supporting the interests of the public.
I live with socialized healthcare, its nice. Especially for the poor, who would not be getting any without it. But you get random doctor that might be good or not very good. Some medicine you wont get cause its too expensive to procure. In the us, it seems if you got good coverage, you get better healthcare than pretty much all countries with socialized healthcare today. But i dont live in the us, so i dont know
But i dont live in the us, so i dont know
Obviously not.
So you are saying you dont get better healthcare in the US than say, UK, if you have a good healthcare insurance?
You can buy anything money can buy (if you have the money to buy it).
If you are elite enough to get top notch health insurance in the United States, but not elite enough to hire a personal
supplierdoctor, then you get top-notch healthcare.If you’re below that tier, you might get adequate healthcare but not great healthcare. The population health of Europe seems to be consistently better on their socialized programs.
Now yes, UK’s NHS has been deteriorating specifically correlating to when the Tories outsourced it to commercial providers so that’s an instance that appears to be socialized healthcare that got corrupted by capitalism. As is George W. Bush’s modification of Medicare so that we clients allegedly choose a provider that is then paid by Medicare. It also shifted prescriptions from Medicaid to Medicare D, again outsourcing fulfillment to privatized suppliers.
What is curious is that medical services, medicines and medical treatments cost typically more than twice as much in the US than they do anywhere else for the same thing so we’re paying extra, whether we’re getting premium or shit. As a result, those who have to pay out of pocket will often get their meds shipped from Canada or Mexico.
So regardless of what your medical system outside of the US, the medical system in the US is not a good model to follow.
I’m not quite sure your point. Any medical care program will be better at treating common diseases than rare diseases. There’s just more data to pull in research and development. We get more examples of what works and doesn’t.
But the point of socialized services is to make sure everyone gets served.
One of the major concerns regarding any good or service that is essential (not just medical care, but food, water and power) is that selling it as a commodity is a moral hazard. Since the customer is obligated to buy (or starve, freeze in the elements, die of dehydration) an unchecked capitalist can charge any price and, historically, has.
Before the age of states and movements away from monarchy towards (more) public-serving governments, we depended on the Church’s (meager) charity, and just accepted that a lot of people were going to die year after year, from famine, plague, freezing and so on. But I think we’re trying to do better than the middle ages.
Here in the US, the federal and state governments are completely captured by plutocratic interests, and it’s moving back towards autocracy. And our Republican officials have expressed that they’re okay with letting small children work long hours in hazardous environments, and letting poor children starve.
This reminds me of a quote from the Grapes of Wrath, (which is set during the great depression):
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
I’ve never gotten around to reading that book. Never knew enough about it to be interested. At the same time as I was eating on $50 of food stamps per month, I was the person who had to take out all the expired meat and stale bread and unsold, entire cakes down to the dumpster.
Had I taken anything and been seen, I would have been fired. A coworker was fired, for handing it out to the homeless shelter across the street instead. I’ve never forgotten that.
I’m going to read that book, I think.
A friend of mine ran a grocery store in the 70s in Texas, and tells me it was routine at the time for grocers to hand out their unsold just-expired meat and vegetables out at closing time. There was always a line to a Dutch door where someone handed out the food by the bag.
It was also known to reduce shoplifting.
So yes, it’s interesting that the practice of tainting discarded food has become acceptable again.
One of the USDA’s responsibilities is to track food waste like this, since 30%-40% of all food in the US is wasted, and discarded food makes up the largest factor in our managed solid waste. I can’t say it is a crime to mass-dispose of food in the US, but it is regarded as a harm, at least by the USDA.
It is certainly regarded as harmful when grocers and restaurants taint their disposed food to deter dumpster diving. But this is done to deter homeless people from trying to forage, e.g. disregarding the humanity of those desperate enough to eat discarded food.
Not only do they refuse to distribute wasted food, they’ve laid the blame on the people, stating that they can’t distribute it for fear of an overly litigious populace.
Which we’ve solved federally, I think during the Clinton administration. Businesses and people are protected when donating discarded food in good faith, let alone letting dumpster divers pick what they want.
Make sure to get the unabridged version as theres a lot of abridged versions out there for the grapes of wrath.
Yes things were really bad before Keynesian economic policy was invented. But fortunately they figured that out.
Since then most famines have been caused by political instability. The largest famine in the world since we figured out economic policy happened in a socialist country (China).
While socialism is beneficial in some sectors of the economy, historically socialism doesn’t have a reliable track record when it comes to food production and distribution.
The Keynesian theory that was enforced by the largest military in the world has arguably failed at this point.
Free markets don’t exist. It’s just a load of assumptions.
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Keynesian economic strategies have never been implemented. We almost did that in 2020, but the rich saw what was happening, namely them losing control, and they stopped the stimulus packages world wide, for the poor. They kept the handouts for themselves
Please explain why farmers in capitalist economies were grinding up crops after the lockdowns started.
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Socialism wasn’t even mentioned, dipshit.
'murica alone wastes enough food to feed ALL of their homeless population MORE THAN 10x OVER. Get the fuck out of here with your rightwing rethoric.
Since then most famines have been caused by political instability.
Like you’re so close. What causes the political instability?
Just watched a thing yesterday about milk companies dumping tanker after tanker of perfectly good milk, because they don’t want the prices to drop.
that would be artificial scarcity
Economists laugh when people believe they’re moving away from the evils of money by not using “Dollar Bills”.
You read a novel about a post-apocalyptic society where the government is giving out food vouchers just to try to maintain order, and people instantly start using the food voucher slips as currency.
Power dynamics, including the power of the person who farms the land, the person who trucks the food to a storehouse, the person who invests time and thought to design and builds the processing factory, can be expressed any number of ways. You just pick your poison about how you express that power.
Power depends on consciousness of one’s capacities for power, and of others’ capacities for power over oneself.
Which farmers have
Some.
Consciousness is often elusive.
Fair
Socialism has consistently failed to do that too because it can’t handle outside influence from foreign powers. Let’s just freely distribute technology and let people farm for themselves again doing that. Highly organized societies are nothing but slave mills.
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I would suggest anyone concerned about food production under socialism look up Lysenkoism to find the real pitfall.
The fatal flaw in any collective system will always stem from authoritarian policies, but all you need to avoid the greatest errors is simply not, you know, rule by terror.
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Yes it clearly has and if it hadn’t, they’d be the exceedingly rich countries with massive militaries, but they’re not. The U.S., the corporate oligarchy, is. So their social structure loses, and the one we both hate wins.
Life just favors evil in that way.
You don’t hate it. You’re just a troll.
And I am sure totally disregarding the subject of conversation to attack me is 100% not concern trolling in any way. Nope, looking for any opportunity to fling emotional barbs at someone you hate is the height of maturity
Now back to debating the merits of socialism while you go on the block list for the umpteenth time
Oh no.
Anyways.
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That is how it works. It literally is how reality works. You can see it everywhere. You just don’t want to believe it because you want to live in a working communist nation but it’s just not possible in our Darwinian world where evil triumphs.
If you want to build a social system that reliably and fairly provides people their needs, you have to take the Darwinist nature of existence into account which no social system, including capitalism, really does effectively.
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OK troll.
I suggest not worrying too much about the “Darwinist nature of existence”.
You should learn about China’s construction boom starting during the housing crisis of 2008, and think about how events may have unfolded differently if China had not held up the steel and concrete industries globally.
China did that by becoming an authoritarian capitalist country, so that just proves my point. Communism doesn’t work.
Ugh.
Your premise has been that China is not capitalist. Now you insert the contradicting premise that China is capitalist.
No matter, though, if logical consistency is too arduous, you can always fall back on your pseudoscientific schtick 'cuz nature.
It is appropriate to express the various legitimate grievances against the Soviet Union, but not through narratives that are simplistic, dishonest, uncritical, or ideological.
Within the course of half a century, the Soviet Union transformed from an agrarian peasant feudal society to the first civilization to succeed in carrying a human to space and welcoming his safe return. Such is a remarkable achievement in its own right, unequaled before or since, yet more so considering the accompanying context, that within the same period had occurred a political revolution, a Civil War, foreign invasions of one wave during the Civil War, by the great powers, including the US, and of a second wave during the Second World War, by the Third Reich.
Socialism is merely workers owning the means of production. There is no reason you can’t have local, green-style politics or market socialism.
Just don’t.
Any path you follow will quickly lead to a truckload of babble about social Darwinism and other pseudoscientific dribble.
That is always the risk you run talking about politics on the Internet.
I am not explaining a risk, but rather behavior that has been entirely consistent from the particular participant.
There is no reason to vote down. I am trying to be helpful.
There is no reason to vote down.
I have no idea why you’re telling me this.
I thought you may have contributed to the down votes, but in fact it also appears that I have been targeted personally by organized voting.
Arguably you are simply suggesting that a population may manage land usage cooperatively.
I would not find much promise, though, in lack of organization. Lands and other resources are finite, and many will want to have a lifestyle or occupation that is urbanized, requiring food to be shipped into cities.
For conflict over land usage not to escalate into harm, it may seem necessary that those affected by its usage participate in organization.
Then let’s just kickstart human expansion into space so resources and land can be unlimited. That would be the only highly organized society you could convince me is legitimate.
We have more than enough land mass for every single human being to have at least one acre to themselves and then some right now, though. We just can’t distribute it evenly because humans are apes that form dominance hierarchies and control over the land goes to the dominant apes. Only when humans are genetically engineered to be egalitarian will it ever change, so I guess our debate is pretty moot.
So how do you distribute it fairly?
What if I a shitty piece of land with rocks in it? And my neighbor has a nice productive piece of land?
Good luck resolving these kinds of disputes
Give people the technology to meet their needs and survive happily regardless of the surface of the land they’re given. Land that cannot be built on is cut out of the equation. Vertical farms are used to grow crops instead of direct land cultivation. Water is provided in accordance with user use and if there isn’t enough, more is desalinated. Electricity and homeostasis maintenance is achieved with technology attached to the house.
Divvy up land by plains and fields first, then extend from there. Even land in the middle of fucking Siberia can have comfortable housing and farming done on it with the right technology. If it’s too cold or too hot, dome it over. Even the fucking ocean can have artificial islands or floating platforms constructed on it. No one has to go without territory.
It doesn’t have to be hard.
Sorry.
Your understanding of biology, anthropology, and history have been limited to the tropes distributed through a reactionary agenda.
Primates are social, and exhibit immensely varied and nuanced behaviors for sharing and cooperation, further enhanced by culture that adapts a particular population to local conditions. Humans share many general similarities with other kinds of ape, but are not constrained by traits that may be observed strictly in such species.
For a point of comparison, suppose we take your suggestion literally, about colonizing off planet. Do you imagine some level of cooperation being required, perhaps even great personal sacrifice, not strongly supported by your caricatured representations of nonhuman species?
I did and I got a 14 day suspension from League of Legends.
Funny how communist countries have the worst track record of famines killing millions.
Meanwhile the billions starving under capitalism because it’s cheaper to let people starve than ship food, even a few miles to a food bank:
Are you braindead? Millions are starving under capitalism right now.
Learn about the Irish Potato Famine, the numerous famines under the British Raj in India. Count the millions who died under them, and try to resolve for your own understanding how they were caused by countries you are characterizing as communist.
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What does that have to do with the post?
Under capitalism, food isn’t produced to feed people, it’s produced to make a profit.
The only way to make a profit under capitalism is to satisfy the needs of your consumers, regardless if you want or not.
When it’s not profitable to feed people, we let them starve.
Hunger is literally an innate need. It will not be profitable if other external factors arise, just as regulations, licences, government-granted privileges that squash other competitors… any violation of the right to self-ownership and private property is detrimental and coercive.
Even when our labor has conquered scarcity, capitalism must manufacture it in order to justify its existence.
Scarcity is not something you can “conquer”. Resources are scarce and all have alternative uses. Any time we consume any good, it comes as an expense to someone.
“The unplanned order of markets is the greatest achievement of mankind. It enables us to prosper. It is the foundation of civilization. It has no real alternative, and emerges spontaneously, so it costs us nothing. Fear and loathing of this self-imposed and unintended gift threatens our well-being, even our very lives.”
Do you have a point or are you just nitpicking?
I think the point is that capitalism may be wonderfully humane, as long as it is confined within a mental box, and never touched by daylight.
The only way to make a profit under capitalism is to satisfy the needs of your consumers, regardless if you want or not.
This isn’t true. This isn’t close to true, not even a little. Rent seeking, manufacturing wants/needs, extortion, the list goes on and on, but…
It will not be profitable if other external factors arise, just as regulations, licences, government-granted privileges that squash other competitors
…Yep. You’ve defined capitalism so that all these inevitable features of a capitalist economy are “external factors”. What a stroke of genius. But much like the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels, the myriad ills that inevitably accompany it are “external” only because capitalists have named them so.
Scarcity is not something you can “conquer”.
It’s not something capitalism can conquer, because any solution that would end scarcity for a good or service would thereby end profitability for the same. No capitalist would provide it; they’d sooner let their capital collect dust than be used without profit. Or in the case of the Great Depression, they’d sooner set fresh produce and livestock on fire than let other consume it without profit to themselves.
The unplanned order of markets […] emerges spontaneously, so it costs us nothing.
Markets cost us nothing because they emerge spontaneously? Things that emerge spontaneously cost us nothing? I’ll leave it to the reader to poke holes in this obvious nonsense. I’ll merely point out that capitalists have proven themselves masters at turning a profit from things that “emerge spontaneously”, costing everyone a great deal in the process.
Rent seeking, manufacturing wants/needs, extortion, the list goes on and on, but…
Aside for your idea of “manufacturing wants/needs” (as they are unlimited), rent seeking and extortion (such as subsidies and taxation) are not legit means to profit in a market-setting.
“Those who particularly flourish on the free market, therefore, will be those most adept at production and at serving their fellow men; those who succeed in the political struggle for subsidies, on the other hand, will be those most adept at wielding coercion or at winning favors from wielders of coercion.”
You’ve defined capitalism so that all these inevitable features of a capitalist economy are “external factors”.
Corporatocracy is not the same as capitalism. The state is not intrinsically bounded to the formation of markets and voluntary exchange.
because any solution that would end scarcity for a good or service would thereby end profitability for the same.
There is no such thing as a permanent solution to the economic problem of scarcity. Any superabundance theory is destined to fail, such as keynesian economics.
Or in the case of the Great Depression, they’d sooner set fresh produce and livestock on fire than let other consume it without profit to themselves.
The Great Depression represented the most visible sign of a necessary correction in an economy artificially inflated by expansionary monetary policy. The interventionist measures made to boost the economy only drove it further into depression.
“Future recessions can be prevented by reforming the monetary system that creates the boom in the first place.”
Markets cost us nothing because they emerge spontaneously? Things that emerge spontaneously cost us nothing?
“We might object to this on the grounds that markets, like any other construct, are man made, and therefore entail a real cost. While it is true that markets are a human construct, we must bear in mind that they are, as Hayek put it, the result of human action, but not the result of human design.”
The only way to make a profit under capitalism is to satisfy the needs of your consumers,
I think this may be the most stupid thing I’ve read today, and I’ve already read three headlines about Trump!
I guess capitalism would never dream of creating monopolies and artificial shortages to increase profit? And it wouldn’t dream of trying to trick customers to pay more for less?I guess capitalism would never dream of creating monopolies and artificial shortages to increase profit?
The only way to be a monopoly is to have a government-grant privilege, for gaining legal rights to be a preferred producer is the only way to maintain a monopoly in a market setting.
“Artificial shortages” are created by the mere existence of intellectual property. Even what you define “artificial shortage” is probably not artificial at all, as the price of a final consumer good is not determined by its cost of production.
And it wouldn’t dream of trying to trick customers to pay more for less?
“Prices are only incidental manifestations of [economic] activities, symptoms of an economic equilibrium between the economies of individuals.” This means that the emergence of a realized price […] coincides not only with the consummation of the exchange process but also with the attainment of a momentary state of rest by the parties involved in the exchange.
The only way to be a monopoly is to have a government-grant privilege,
Amazon, Microsoft, Google.
Many kinds of product are now only produced by a handful of different companies, who have acquired numerous smaller companies, and maintained the brands, keeping consumers generally unaware.
for gaining legal rights to be a preferred producer is the only way to maintain a monopoly in a market setting.
Surely you are aware of economic moats that have nothing to do with government privileges. Many things are very very hard to compete with from scratch. Take the advanced chips issue - there are 2 companies that can make 3nm chips IIRC, TSMC and Samsung. Many governments would love to have the manufacturing in their country, but even with massive incentives, we’re 5-10 years out at best of anything being completed. This isn’t a limit of IP (though there’s that too), it’s a limit of trained up people, processes and equipment that’s extremely expensive.
Now lets say you think TSMC charges too much, and you could do it cheaper. Well, first you need billions of dollars to just build your plant. Then you need years to get trained people who can get reasonable yields from it. So here you’re at 10 years or so, when you’re just dumping money into a hole. Now, you’re BCMC (Better Cheaper Manufacturing Company) - which people reasonably distrust when you’re the new kid on the block in a complicated and difficult manufacturing product. So you have to sell lower, probably at a loss as you work out efficiencies. And not a little lower, but you have to entice people to try out this “off brand”.
Can you see why people might not be rushing to compete with TSMC?
Oh, and if you manage to get reasonably good, there’s also a good chance TSMC just buys you out to prevent competition. This happens all the time in pretty much all fields.
So while it’s hard to have a T-Shirt making monopoly, or a farmers market monopoly, it’s much easier to defend a capital intensive industry.
No. You can also profit by appropriating the fruits of somebody else’s labor and taking advantage of market failures. Often times, actions that benefit consumers fail to receive adequate funding due to involving public goods.
Capitalism violates the ethical basis of property rights of getting the positive and negative fruits of your labor. In the capitalist firm, the employer solely appropriates the whole product of the firm, which workers produce but are denied the legal rights to
No. You can also profit by appropriating the fruits of somebody else’s labor
Capitalism violates the ethical basis of property rights of getting the positive and negative fruits of your labor.An entrepreneur can’t “appropriate” somebody else’s labor if the employee who agreed to work for a wage did it voluntarily. Denying this would imply denying the natural right of the worker to free will. Social cooperation is not the same as slavery.
and taking advantage of market failures.
These so-called “market failures” are the product of an utilitarian and scientific economic theory to understand the causes and effects of economic relationships, as it ignores completely the difference between the study of Human Action and economic history.
In fact, the intervention of the government makes it more difficult to have a good allocation of resources.
Often times, actions that benefit consumers fail to receive adequate funding due to involving public goods.
“Every good is useful “to the public,” and almost every good […] may be considered “necessary.” Any designation of a few industries as “public utilities” is completely arbitrary and unjustified.”
Property rights’ moral basis flows from the moral principle that the de facto responsible party should be held legally responsible. The workers are jointly de facto responsible for using up the inputs to produce the outputs. The voluntariness of the employment contract is irrelevant because de facto responsibility cannot be transferred even with consent. The labor’s voluntariness makes them more responsible. There is an inalienable right, which can’t be given up even with consent, here
Property rights’ moral basis flows from the moral principle that the de facto responsible party should be held legally responsible.
Property rights are deduced by the natural right to self-ownership.
“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a “property” in his own “person.” This nobody has any right to but himself.”
The voluntariness of the employment contract is irrelevant because de facto responsibility cannot be transferred even with consent.
As I said before, you’re denying the natural right of the employee to free will.
Every individual employs scarce resources to attain a desirable end. If you are against social cooperation, you’re making human action more difficult.
“For a contract to exist as property, each contracting party has a property interest in specific performance on the part of the opposing contracting party. But a property interest in specific performance is not a property interest in the person. The employer contracts with an employee for specific performance. The employee also contracts with the employer in similar style. Each has a property interest in the performance of the other, but neither owns the person of the other.”
In an enterprise, the whole product is the property rights to outputs and liabilities for used-up inputs. By the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match, the workers should jointly get the whole product.
You are denying employees’ free will, which comes with responsibility for the results of their joint actions.
Not against social cooperation. Am arguing that all firms should be worker coops. Labor and responsibility are de facto non-transferable
https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/
Food is not scarce. Rising food prices are not because of food scarcity. Milk hasn’t nearly doubled in price in the past two years because of a scarcity of dairy cows.
Food is not scarce.
Food is not a superabundant resource. If it was, then the ends it satisfies would already have been attained, and there would be no need for action. Resources that are superabundant no longer function as means, because they are no longer objects of action.
An example of an actual superabundant resource is the air:
“Thus, air is indispensable to life and hence to the attainment of goals; however, air being superabundant is not an object of action and therefore cannot be considered a means, but rather what Mises called a “general condition of human welfare.” Where air is not superabundant, it may become an object of action, for example, where cool air is desired and warm air is transformed through air conditioning.”
Rising food prices are not because of food scarcity.
Of course. Rising the price of something could be caused by a lot of things. However, we should differentiate a change of the price caused by voluntary exchange of it caused by institutional coercion.
Milk hasn’t nearly doubled in price in the past two years because of a scarcity of dairy cows.
Descriptive economics is not the same as explanatory economics.
One example alone I can think of of how privatisation is bad is that redundancy is ignored because it is not profitable. For example, our water companies in the UK is incentivised to not have huge reserves because they cost more to maintain, which means that during a bad drought, people do run out of water. This has already happened, and this is only one example.
This happens with all sorts of industries that provide essential services - they will fail when put under stress, because to account for that stress is unprofitable. At worst, it leads to people suffering, at best, it needs constant regulation and enforcement by the government to stop them running in an unsafe manner. Companies will literally use child labour if you let them - I don’t know why you insist on defending them.
One example alone I can think of of how privatisation is bad is that redundancy is ignored because it is not profitable.
At worst, it leads to people suffering, at best, it needs constant regulation and enforcement by the government to stop them running in an unsafe manner.There you go. The classical myth of “natural monopolies” and the intervention of the government, such as licenses, protectionism, “public utilities”, subsidies, etc. are the mere cause of this problem.
“The fact that the government must give permission for the use of its streets has been cited to justify stringent government regulations of ‘public utilities,’ many of which (like water or electric companies) must make use of the streets. The regulations are then treated as a voluntary quid pro quo. But to do so overlooks the fact that governmental ownership of the streets is itself a permanent act of intenention. Regulation of public utilities or of any other industry discourages investment in these industries, thereby depriving consumers of the best satisfaction of their wants. For it distorts the resource allocations of the free market.”
Companies will literally use child labour if you let them
“[…] the only reason our children don’t have to do this type of labor is that we are wealthier, not because of our child-labor laws nor because we are somehow culturally or racially superior.”
Any ban on child labor is utterly counterproductive and potentially life-threatening to the very people the government is “trying to protect”. Only economic development can improve the lives of these children, and nothing short of unrestricted free trade will do.
ITT: Conflation of free market economics and capitalism.
Was there a watchmen parody in king of the hill that I missed? Or did someone just make this?
Don’t question Space Bobby
It’s just this one edit, it’s been around for like a decade though
Thats my purse!
Dangit bobbuh
Farming shouldn’t be profitable. It should be considered a service.
Nothing should be profitable except the work of the individual for that individual. Every dollar of corporate profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.
I suppose, though, most would not call profit the value created by one’s own labor.
That’s because we’re used to profit being exploited from our labour rather than being the benefactor of our own value. Under capitalism profit goes to the slave owner, under socialism profit goes to the worker.
I know, but some might apply terms such that you would be describing the abolition of profit, rather than preserving one particular expression.
Sure, context matters. You’ll hear me say ‘Every dollar of profit is a dollar exploited from the supplier, the worker, and the customer.’ until I’m blue in the face. But everyone understands (or at least I hope they do) that profit is a value beyond the cost of production and that should benefit the worker not the whip cracker should it exist at all.
According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor, whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.
To a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.
Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.
Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.
According to your definition, though, wages plus profit might exceed total value from labor
Correct.
whereas some would consider wages and profit as the two shares that divide such value.
This falls short because it fails to examine how the customer is exploited by spending more than the product’s value for access to the product.
Resources + Labour = Cost
Cost + Profit = Price
∴ Profit = Exploited valueTo a capitalist, labor is purchased at market and construed as an input contributing to the cost of production. To a worker, however, wages are not a component of such cost, but rather only are non-labor inputs and additional expenses.
Correct, capitalists have a deliberately belligerent view of total value assessment because it’s not in their interest to share that value with the worker. And the workers are uneducated and rely on a capitalist system to survive so they simply don’t know better.
Therefore, profit remains as a share of value that may in principle be paid as wages, but that rather is claimed privately by an employer, because the worker cannot demand a higher wage.
Correct.
Functionally, profit is the stolen wages, which would be abolished as a consequence of the abolition of private property.
You don’t need to abolish private property in a socialised system, just private exploitation.
Personal profit will always exist through the negotiation of one’s value with their customer but the definitive separation between cost, price, and value dissappears because they become the same thing.
Aren’t you forgetting the whole supply and demand thing…
No. That’s why the caption says “… capitalism must manufacture [scarcity] in order to justify its existence”
If there are enough resources for everyone, then it is difficult to make a profit. So capitalism creates artificial barriers and waste to artificially create scarcity and demand in order to maximise profits. Its most obvious with products that are deliberately designed to wear-out, or break, or degrade over time.
Making long-lasting durable, repairable, and upgradable products is not beyond us - but is harder to make a profit that way. So instead we get stuff that degrades over time.
With food it is more subtle, but what is crystal clear is maximizing profits is the top priority for the invisible hand of capitalism. Keeping everyone well fed may be a desirable side effort, but is not what capitalism is trying to achieve. And that’s why we end up throwing away huge amount of vegetables that aren’t quite the right shape for supermarkets, but at the same time as having people starving.
Yes, and when the cost of a product becomes too high for it’s true value, alternatives are created, which is why you’re probably on lemmy right now. Right now, made to break profits are marketed to be cheaper, and while they are not, people believe it which is why they are still in high demand. There is an abundance of supply with many options, this is very different from low supply.
Capitalism is not inherently the problem. It’s the corruption of governments that allow artificial scarcity to exist.
when the cost of a product becomes too high for it’s true value, alternatives are created
Now we discover your true understanding of “basic economics”, the magical thinking that the man on the television screen and the man behind the lectern told you was the final truth and the deepest wisdom, and that you believed because believing is what you wanted to do.
which is why you’re probably on lemmy right now.
Capitalism made the iPhone. I’m smart.
Capitalism made Lemmy. I’m really smart.
I’m not saying or thinking any of that. I’m not talking here because i have the ultimate answer, im collecting different perspectives.
You are not meaningfully collecting different perspectives, though, if you are dismissing others as not falling inside of your own construct of “basic economics”.
I assume you are aware that economies have occurred historically not based on supply and demand.
Yes, they tend to fall under some sort of authoritarian system and usually still have free trade outside of the system. When supply and demand is discarded by government, people tend to die. So it seems to me that we can central power since the free market, while not ideal, is still better than the likely risk of corrupt power with all of the power.
People are dying because the entire economy, the entirety of processes of production and distribution, is under massively centralized control, and driven by the profit motive, which is inimical to human survival and flourishing, in a word, corrupt.
I have been browsing comments for the post quite aggressively, and have even read most of them now several times. I have found none advocating for supply and demand being “discarded by government”, nor any for expansion of authority.
Right, that’s why diamonds are so expensive! No, wait, that shit is actually worthless and only exploded in value because a few rich fuckers CREATED the PERCEPTION of scarcity.
Supply and demand is a fucking fairy tale told by rightwing scum to manipulate public discourse. It requires a world of absolute and perfect knowledge to function, which, unsurprisingly, doesn’t apply.
Supply and demand is basic economics and applies to any form of trading. You can make a point about artificial scarcity but diamonds aint it because the demand is also artificial.
Yes, basic economics which I learned in-depth during higher education years ago and promptly realised was bullshit.
Why is supply and demand bullshit?
Basically because its deeply oversimplified to the point of being nonsense. As it stands, some assholes in suits set the price. There are constant bouts of shrinkflation, some stores raise prices based on brand prestige, convenience, friction, or because a neighborhood is wealthy. Economics classes create a distorted view of how the world works. And that narrative they taught us is designed to help us accept neoliberalism. And disregard alternatives.
It makes a set of assumptions which don’t apply to the real world, chief among which is perfect knowledge of all agents in a market, which not only doesn’t apply but cannot apply.
Scarcity is a relation between supply and demand, not a low supply accompanied by a low demand.
Yes, I misspoke. The point stands.
The point as you stated it is not accurate.
If you have a point you consider valid, then please offer an accurate phasing.
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Yeah, just send some food to a place that doesn’t have enough. Simple enough.
Except doing that puts the local agriculture out of business. No one buys food when someone’s giving it away, right? I suppose you can just continue sending food to that country that’s now completely dependent on your country. Good plan. That is if your plan is to establish a colonial empire with client states completely dependent on yours.
How about a socialist revolution? Nobody has ever died in a famine in a socialist country! Oh… wait.
Nah the best strat involves subsidizing the local agriculture industry, expanding it while temporarily providing just enough food to top up to area with the needed calories to prevent people from starving. Once the local agriculture industry has expanded, you’ve succeeded in the whole “teach a man how to fish rather than giving a man a fish” thing.
So you have to send tractors, develop irrigation, maybe send some GMO seeds that have higher crop yields if you’re more concerned about people starving than first world moral objections.
But yeah, let’s just feed people.
You lack imagination and swallow the pill handed to you. Maybe the economic theory is just bullshit thought to you by the people who benefit most from said theory.
Give credit where it’s due.
Great imagination certainly was required to speculate the “plan is to establish a colonial empire”.
If current systems of imperial hegemony were dismantled, then all regions would become more resilient, through greater food independence, and food producers could become more prosperous.
It is confounding how, through reading the post, you became determined to object over someone’s “plan is to establish a colonial empire with client states completely dependent on yours”.
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Food insecurity by definition is a condition of nonzero risk for starvation.
Your objection is absurd on its merits, a sophistic distortion of terms, the same as conceding that smoking may shorten lifespan, but also denying it may cause death.
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Again, your claim is absurd in its merits, embodying an inherent contradiction.
A society cannot be free of starvation but unfree of food insecurity, because either is a consequence of the same general forces, only named differently according to the degree of final effect.
Also, I am troubled by your insinuation that you would object less strongly to the death of someone who is mentally ill than to that of someone who is able.
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Your position is that you oppose people starving, but not the social forces that carry people toward ever greater risk of starvation.
I explained your entire position in a single sentence, without invoking a Gish gallop about China, armchairs, and propaganda.
Again, your position is absurd.
You are straining your own imagination to defend systems that are plain for you to recognize are indefensible.
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Listen. You are alive today only because in the past, it had not gone unnoticed that capitalist society is in its basic essence incapable of the one most obviously essential functions of society, to keep its population alive.
Food banks and government assistance are developments that compensate for the failures of the system you defend so adamantly.
Invoking them as a defense is absolutely inane.
You got a source on that? The CIA conducted studies and found that throughout a vast majority of the existence of the USSR, that was a complete fabrication. The people were eating roughly equivalent calories, but the soviets had a significantly healthier and nutritious diet.
The people who want to end the social safety net call themselves capitalists though.
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