Conversation

Notices

1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Jun-2018 16:57:23 EDT Adam

   If you think a UBI sounds good, wait until you hear about communism and the end of wage labour.

   1. Modern Industrial (modernindustrial@mastodon.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Jun-2018 08:04:16 EDT Modern Industrial

      in reply to

      @ink_slinger Genuine question-what do you see as the advantage of communism over UBI?

      1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Jun-2018 09:57:21 EDT Adam

         in reply to

         @Modern_Industrial UBI will likely be just barely enough to scrape by. As good jobs become more rare, as automation increases and job security looks more and more like a fantasy for most people, a UBI may serve merely to prevent the masses of poor & unemployed from rioting. Basically, there will still be few very rich & many more who are poor (but not starving to death, at least).

         Communism, hypothetically, would make that automation work for all.

         1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Jun-2018 11:02:36 EDT Adam

            in reply to

            @Modern_Industrial This isn't to say that UBI is bad in the short term, just that it probably shouldn't be the end goal. Recent experiments have shown that it significantly improves people's lives, so I'm not opposed to it in principal.

            UBI as progressive reform. Fully automated luxury communism as utopian vision to continually strive toward.

            1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Jun-2018 11:26:53 EDT Adam

               in reply to

               @Modern_Industrial Another thought: depending on how a UBI is structured, it could actually increase income inequality. If it's of a sort that everyone gets no matter what their employment income (as opposed to one that decreases as income goes up, and maybe eventually being taken away if you make over X dollars) it could see employers saying, "OK, we'll pay everyone less because they get a UBI from the gov't." Profits go up and the rich get richer.

               1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Jun-2018 11:30:16 EDT Adam

                  in reply to

                  @Modern_Industrial Of course, if it's a graduated system that doesn't get paid out to people earning over a certain threshold, then it's not really a *universal* basic income. But maybe that's OK. I'm not enough of a policy wonk to really know exactly what system would reduce poverty without also increasing the disparity between the rich and the rest of us.

                  1. Modern Industrial (modernindustrial@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 07:25:27 EDT Modern Industrial

                     in reply to

                     @ink_slinger Part of the point of #UBI is that it eliminates means testing. All of the infrastructure associated with proving wealth, checking wealth, administering separate programs, all goes away. Graduating based on income not only keeps it from being universal, but requires keeping this infrastructure. My 2 cents.

               2. Modern Industrial (modernindustrial@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 07:22:56 EDT Modern Industrial

                  in reply to

                  @ink_slinger I think this a feature, not a bug.

                  #UBI should help the economy since it gives more money to the poor, who have a high propensity to spend. Like you said, salaries would also adjust to accommodate UBI - people would make about the same, but some would come from gov, some from business.

                  This opens path to higher taxes on wealth and business income. Don't nationalize business. Keep them private, then take their excess cash.

                  1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 08:15:47 EDT Adam

                     in reply to

                     @Modern_Industrial We've tried that and the rich, through intense lobbying to defend their class interests have dramatically eroded the social welfare state, largely through paying less taxes (both by lobbying to not pay as much and through finding ways to hide their cash). I don't believe implementing a UBI will change this in any meaningful way, hence my worry that it'll actually make things worse in the long run.

                     1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 08:19:04 EDT Adam

                        in reply to

                        @Modern_Industrial I don't really want to nationalize things, since that just invests more power in the state. Communism isn't the government owning things (especially not if it does so within a capitalist structure), it's workers owning and democratically controlling their workplaces (among other things).

                        1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 08:20:34 EDT Adam

                           in reply to

                           @Modern_Industrial I did see an interesting idea about how to use a UBI to make this happen, slowly buying out all the capitalists, but it's a bit long for a toot and I don't even now if it's feasible. I'll see if I can find the link...

                        2. Modern Industrial (modernindustrial@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 14:28:57 EDT Modern Industrial

                           in reply to

                           @ink_slinger This is a great point I struggle with - and maybe my American is showing - but what is a government but a body of and for the people? Isnt a coop with enough people basically a government to a first approximation?

                           The consistent failure of communist strategies has been less of empathy- and growth of corruption and greed - above a certain scale. Gov ensures distribution with legal, enforceable remedies.

                     2. Modern Industrial (modernindustrial@mastodon.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Jun-2018 14:32:51 EDT Modern Industrial

                        in reply to

                        @ink_slinger This is a really great point. in our lifetimes, we've definitely seen the rich corrode our social safety net. I really feel like a different political structure is needed to address that and institutionalize it in a way that is hard to dismantle. Switzerland is the best structure I've seen, but I think there is still room for improvement. We badly need to upgrade the OS of democracy.