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Instead of UBI, we need to pressure our governments to heavily regulate how much the free market can destroy the environment and ourselves. Then, that 80%, who
by sktrdie 11y ago
Instead of UBI, we need to pressure our governments to heavily regulate how much the free market can destroy the environment and ourselves. Then, that 80%, who is unemployed, will work on making sure the agriculture is healthy, harmless, diverse, etc. You can expand this thinking to anything else, but regulation is the key. By regulating you create jobs that weren't possible in a pure free market.
And of course don't forget the entire realm of possible jobs we can't even phantom about these days. Jobs such as a "ventriloquist" should not be ridiculed. Our societies should nurture the diversity of possible things that can be done via regulations and laws and minimum wage.
Then you still have those people that simply don't want to do anything. Which is fine, but if you give them a very large spectrum of possibilities to choose from, and not limit them to a few fields, they will probably find something they like and contribute to the whole system.
But again, the key here is that the government must regulate the free market to expand the possible amount of jobs - this is important because these jobs are not created by the free market, but rather are needed for reasons such as our health, culture, research, exploration... we need more of these.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoLet me translate into economist friendly speech for you: Rather than "regulate", you want to "internalize externalities". Make bad things (like emitting carbon) more expensive by making people pay the estimated true cost of their actions. And don't be afraid to apply it to sacred cows, like agriculture. For example, it's probably tillage that is the most harmful thing that is done by modern agriculture. Tax that. Sure, that will definitely make food more expensive, but now you can use the proceeds to help ensure the poor don't starve. But leave it to farmers to figure out how to grow food without tillage -- it will likely require more labour. To augment your second point, what's the difference between a "starving artist" and an unemployed person? In some ways there's very little difference, in others there's a huge difference. We need to stop categorizing people without traditional jobs as 'unemployed'. There are so many other labels that could fit: artist, student, parent, hobbyist, activist, open source programmer, et cetera.
- rory096 11y ago>We need to stop categorizing people without traditional jobs as 'unemployed'. The only people I've ever seen do this are those who claim the government is 'hiding' the true unemployment rate. The standard U3 rate only includes people actively looking for work. Of course, the BLS publishes 6 rates with various criteria as well as the overall labor force participation rate, but U3 is the indicator mainstream commentators generally use.