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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
I don't know how relevant this is now, but here's a link to another post where I expressed my thoughts on what kind of pitfalls you might most likely face -- https://lemmy.world/post/36867409
By the way, what is this phenomenon on Lemmy? Let's say people are reluctant to read and comment on old posts published just a couple of days or a week ago, but with new ones, it's a completely different story. What kind of psychology is this? Or it seemed to me?
I said in a comment "hey why not universal healthcare and also ubi" and this nutcase yelled at me for over a week about it. I wasn't going to bother with defending the idea since I was just asking "why not" and they were calling me lazy, entitled, and stupid.
Well, these are tense times, so people can be extremely aggressive, but if a collapse happens... Oh, people would become barbarians.
Oh, people would become barbarians.
The billionaire class has already hired a barbarian horde of ICE Agents to bang at our gates.
In a serious economic collapse, circa 2008, we're going to see what happens when those barbarians can't extract their tribute.
I think The Expanse had a decent “UBI” model, Basic
It covers just enough food-like substance with the correct macros for a human, everyone had an apartment and access to the internet and tv channels. I think healthcare was included to a point. That’s it. You could survive on it without much suffering.
If you wanted more, you had to go to school and work.
It's been a while, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a big part of that universe the droves of people on Earth that couldn't afford to survive or house themselves even with UBI?
They did survive, but it was kinda miserable, because you had zero budget for anything except watching ad-infested TV.
Broadly speaking, UBI is a good idea for a bad system.
Public housing, public health care, public grocery stores, public transit, and public education are a good idea for a better system.
The government giving you a fixed stipend to play your hand at the free market carries a whole host of secondary challenges, particularly as we enter a 70s-era inflationary spiral. The private sector having an incentive to create tiered levels of service to capture UBI money while delivering the smallest possible economic benefit to the consumer is a huge problem in the existing market.
The fundamental problem with UBI is that landlords will still evict your ass as soon as they find a way to squeeze more rent out of a unit. You have money, but you don't have any kind of civil right to housing.
As an initial stopgap on the way to a socialist economic model, its got merit. But as a panacea, it - much like minimum wage and child tax credits and other forms of government mandated economic floors - falls depressingly short of the end goal.
The government really needs to either implement rent controls or buy up many of the private apartments to turn into public housing. It really doesn’t make a ton of sense for the product being leased for profit to be … property? In what world does it make sense for where you live to be a for-profit venture for someone else? Nah, the government could own it and rent out units at more reasonable rates/subsidizing the costs.
UBI is still great imo, but it’s not the end step like you said. We should have Universal Healthcare and public transit as well. I feel that UBI could pay for groceries, but grocery stores/food producers should have more regulations on the fillers and junk they put into these ‘food’ items they sell. I believe education K thru College should be free. It just makes sense for society to subsidize the education costs for the people that will help create value to our economy through their higher education.
The government really needs to either implement rent controls or buy up many of the private apartments to turn into public housing.
queuing up The Internationale
UBI is still great imo, but it’s not the end step like you said.
It's a Market Socialist band-aid for what is - at its heart - a problem of rent-seeking and logistics.
I do think it’s possible at the state level to have the government step in to have a more hands on role for real estate among other things. Federally I think that’s a long shot, unless other states see how successful the progressive programs are in Blue states.
I don’t disagree that UBI is in many ways a band-aid. I see it as not too complex for your average person to understand though. The rent problem to me is one that needs to be tackled at the same time that UBI gets implemented.
People still get their freedom of spending their UBI as they desire, although some of their existing expenses could be deducted before they receive UBI payment (e.g., child care payments). From a policy selling perspective UBI looks very attractive, especially when you start receiving payments of it for a while. So much so that people would not stand it going away.
So if you’re working and get a UBI on top of your pay, then you have more money to invest in better versions of the things you have. If you’re living on the street, suddenly you have a government that cares about helping you to get off the ground and help put food on your table.
I don’t think specific help programs should go away mind you; I hear that sometimes but I disagree with that perspective. Maybe some of the UBI could be in a currency that’s only spendable on food (like food stamps), so in those rare cases the money potentially still goes to buying food.
People still get their freedom of spending their UBI as they desire, although some of their existing expenses could be deducted before they receive UBI payment (e.g., child care payments). From a policy selling perspective UBI looks very attractive, especially when you start receiving payments of it for a while. So much so that people would not stand it going away.
Oh, absolutely. Look at the success of Social Security.
I don’t think specific help programs should go away mind you; I hear that sometimes but I disagree with that perspective.
The libertarian pitch for "negative income tax" typically boils down to "if people just have cash in hand then the market will provide". There's never any real introspection into how markets work in practice or why certain neighborhoods are flush with amenities while others are barren.
Maybe some of the UBI could be in a currency that’s only spendable on food (like food stamps), so in those rare cases the money potentially still goes to buying food.
I would rather simply have state-run food pantries with staples provided at-cost. You get a UBI check. You have a public grocer/kitchen with affordable foodstuffs. Most adults can take it from there.
Anyone who isn't able to properly maintain a household on those terms will likely need more real physical social assistance than an incentivized cash-substitute program can provide.
As an initial stopgap on the way to a socialist economic model, its got merit
the way i think of it is that ubi is a bandaid solution. it's not perfect but you still need to apply it, otherwise you bleed out and die before you have a chance of reaching a proper hospital.
What you described in your other post is slavery masked as UBI. It's like how Trump's right wing talk about "freedom" when what they actually mean is nothing like the freedom people actually want or imagine.
Salaried work is effectively gilded slavery. Unless you've got ahitloads of capital, money is basically already limiting you to a certain bracket of "freedom" that we call your "means", and it's under the duress of poverty and death. The rules, particularly laws, apply a lot more strongly to those who are poor than who are rich. Interest punishes poorer borrowers and rewards those who can barrow with impunity by giving them access to endless credit.
A true UBI is essentially unconditional access to the bare necessities of life. Food, shelter, healthcare, security, and public utilities. Doesn't matter if you never work a day in your life - you are valued because you exist. It should grant those who do not want to work a means to live with dignity, and those who do want to work a secure launch pad for finding a vocation that is right for them.
The claims this would lead to lack of incentives to work is misleading. The psychological reality is well l-raised mentally healthy people who are valued as members of a community wish to serve that community however they can, and don't want to feel like "free loaders". They want to be seen to be contributing and making a difference. Not to be thought of as lazy or useless. We're social creatures and we have an instinct for living in a society. It's why we're here now after hundreds of thousands of years.
But, would we want to do dangerous, dirty, unfulfilling and undignified work, for shitty pay? Who will sign up to clean toilets, sweep roads, carry worksite debris to the skip, stand behind the till at the gas station or convenience store 8+ hours a day, answer hundreds of phone calls a day just to give people information they can find online? Obviously, where we can't automate, or otherwise relieve people of the need to do this kind of work, and many hands will not make light work of the situation (e.g. instead of having janitors let's some percentage of the office staff clean up during the last hour of the day, like how we take turns doing the dishes at home), and we actually need sufficient people doing this kind of work full tim, then clearly these jobs need to have rewards sufficient to have people sign up to them. There won't be a need for as many as their are nowz and those who do sign up will be more efficient for the fact they're there of their own Accord and can quit any time they want.
It will be a real challenge to transition to this kind of incentive structure under the current incentives of capitalism (not to many how fucked up it makes people's mental health and moral sentiment towards "the other" as competitors rather than collaborators), and ultimately monetary economics will probably need a significant overhaul and it may not even necessary in the long run. There may be better ways to distribute resources that still has mechanisms for rewarding hard work and determination, unique talent or passion, risk taking, etc. to a degree that nobody will resent such people for their success.
But the way I see it, this is what progress looks like. It's working toward this kind of world that should drive our social and political engagements. I want you to be free - truly free - to life your best life. And not so that your doing means others have to be enslaved. That should make you miserable at every moment.