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I would rather have a world UBI funded by world-level income and capital taxes. The richer countries owe places like Kenya big for centuries of extractive imper

I would rather have a world UBI funded by world-level income and capital taxes. The richer countries owe places like Kenya big for centuries of extractive imperial policies.

jackcosgrove 11y ago
British colonization of Kenya started in the mid-19th century and ended in 1962. Before that the Arabs and Portuguese were only able to control the coasts. So "centuries of extractive imperial policies" is a bit of hyperbole. Do the Italians owe the French compensation for Julius Caesar's campaigns? This game can go on forever.
logfromblammo 11y ago
I would dearly love to see the note I signed to assume that debt. Nobody owes anybody anything for the things their great-grandparents did. Or for the things their grandparents did. Or for the things their parents did. Or for the things their siblings do. Life happens right now, not 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1000 years ago. The problem with worldwide UBI is the same as nationwide UBI. The cash is just a token to split up complicated market-clearing trades into a collection of simple half-trades. You still need the goods and services to be produced and distributed. If you take a million US dollars and give it to a Kenyan, that Kenyan would still have to send some of it right back to New York to fill up a cargo ship and send it to Nairobi, because the local markets aren't equipped to handle that ripple in the money supply. Rather than taking the money, and moving it, you have to take the productivity and move it. You would have to industrialize Kenya to the same extent as the US. You would have to pave it with the same roads, wire it with the same cables, police it with the same cops (or maybe better cops), do business with the same contract law. I think the reason Kenya is still Kenya after the colonial period is because it does not wan't to be the 51st state of the US, or another member state of the EU. And it does not yet have enough robots operating there to sustain a meaningful UBI. Worldwide UBI means worldwide industrialization and uniform business laws. You can't just screw with the money and expect it to work.

I would rather have a world UBI funded by world-level income and capital taxes. The richer countries owe places like Kenya big for centuries of extractive imperial policies.

jackcosgrove 11y ago

British colonization of Kenya started in the mid-19th century and ended in 1962. Before that the Arabs and Portuguese were only able to control the coasts. So "centuries of extractive imperial policies" is a bit of hyperbole. Do the Italians owe the French compensation for Julius Caesar's campaigns? This game can go on forever.

logfromblammo 11y ago

I would dearly love to see the note I signed to assume that debt. Nobody owes anybody anything for the things their great-grandparents did. Or for the things their grandparents did. Or for the things their parents did. Or for the things their siblings do. Life happens right now, not 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1000 years ago. The problem with worldwide UBI is the same as nationwide UBI. The cash is just a token to split up complicated market-clearing trades into a collection of simple half-trades. You still need the goods and services to be produced and distributed. If you take a million US dollars and give it to a Kenyan, that Kenyan would still have to send some of it right back to New York to fill up a cargo ship and send it to Nairobi, because the local markets aren't equipped to handle that ripple in the money supply. Rather than taking the money, and moving it, you have to take the productivity and move it. You would have to industrialize Kenya to the same extent as the US. You would have to pave it with the same roads, wire it with the same cables, police it with the same cops (or maybe better cops), do business with the same contract law. I think the reason Kenya is still Kenya after the colonial period is because it does not wan't to be the 51st state of the US, or another member state of the EU. And it does not yet have enough robots operating there to sustain a meaningful UBI. Worldwide UBI means worldwide industrialization and uniform business laws. You can't just screw with the money and expect it to work.