Ask Lemmy

I'm sceptical of it. where would all of that money come from? the "data industry", that is all about making the most believable lies and most effective ads? or land value tax that will make sure to outprice you from your own house if rich people flood it, or if improvements happen around the area?

the pension system, while I believe it is needed, I worry it cannot be sustained for too long anymore because currently it relies on infinite growth everywhere: year over year more people needs to work and pay taxes to finance the pension of the elderly.
or did I misunderstand something and this is not a problem?

I've soured on it recently, if you gave everyone $1000 a month then your landlord is just going to raise your rent by $1000.

If full socialism is out of the picture, and we could enact something like UBI I think we should expand disability and social security for those who can't work and then do a universal guaranteed jobs program for those who can work because:

1. It's way more politically viable. It's going to be almost impossible to convince a majority of Americans to "pay people to sit around all day". They'd be way more open to it if they're doing a job.

2. We could use the labor on fields that the market doesn't value, such as building green infrastructure or social work for low income individuals. This would go along with expanding the definition of a job to any work that is benefiting society. If you're a parent spending all your time caring for a young or disabled child then that's a job and you should get paid for it.

3. It you increase the wage for these guaranteed jobs that effectively raises the minimum wage since the private employers have to compete with the government. Why work at McDonald's for $10 an hour when the government is paying $15. If you raise UBI that may decrease wages as employers will use it as an excuse to pay less.

4. Even for people making above minimum wage it gives the worker more bargaining power since your employer loses the threat of throwing you onto the streets. This is also true for UBI but only if it's enough to fully cover a comfortable life which I don't think will happen due to the inflation it may cause.

5. It increases production which can help to increase supply and cover for the increase in demand giving people that much money will cause so inflation is checked more.

6. People neeed a job, as in the expanded definition I gave above, it's a big part of how people make meaning in there life. The best case for someone not working would be they just play video games all day, worst case they turn to drug use.

companies are gonna company.

and in this country, corporations are people.

capitalism loves to embrace extend extinguish so sure it's temporarily compatible with e v e r y t h i n g

I don't think UBI can exist at all. There's way too many problems that aren't even close to being addressed by arguments in favor of it. It doesn't work at all from a financial perspective. There's not a level of automation that exists that could handle the loss of workers. There's little evidence that new innovation or invention would happen as there's little benefit for the creator. The only way it works is in a post scarcity society, which isn't even close to existing.

One problem with this question is that UBI can be implemented in different ways and the way that it is implemented is very important.

I think that the way most people think about UBI is that you would get enough money to not have to work. I don't think that this is compatible with capitalism, because the main reason why people work is because they are pressured into it for economic reasons so removing that without providing people with some other reason to work will just cause the economy to collapse.

Even if people work for some other reason than money, you will still have the problem that UBI undermines itself. As less people work for money, the money you get from the UBI program will also mean less. Not only do you need a different way to encourage people to work, but you also need a new way to distribute the products of that work if you want to ensure that everyone has access to basics like food and housing.

For these reasons I don't think that a UBI that offers people the option of not working is compatible with capitalism. Capitalism is the system that we use to distribute work and resources and if we implement UBI we will have to invent new systems to do those things instead.

It is still possible to have a smaller UBI under capitalism if your goal is to for example prevent money from getting to concentrated among the rich and instead stimulate the economy, or something.

Let's see, lemmy, let's see if we can find one upvoted opinion against UBI.

Ah, no, we're an echo chamber. But then what's the point of AskLemmy, if you already know that everyone thinks the exact same way you do?

Let's see, lemmy, let's see if we can find one upvoted opinion against UBI.

Ah, no, we're an echo chamber. But then what's the point of AskLemmy, if you already know that everyone thinks the exact same way you do?