5 ms·

If we want UBI, why not go full communalism or anarcho-collectivism?

by mehrzad 11y ago

fapjacks 11y ago
Because capitalism is a phenomenal economic tool?
panic 11y ago
The free market seems to work pretty well for people with money. The idea of UBI is to give everyone money so it works well for everyone. Is there evidence that these alternatives will do any better?
- orangecat 11y ago
  The free market seems to work pretty well for people with money. The idea of UBI is to give everyone money so it works well for everyone. I'm totally stealing that line.
Daishiman 11y ago
Because you still want an effective market economy; you just don't want people dying and suffering because of it.
StanislavPetrov 11y ago
Because systems based on pure ideology don't work well in reality. Its the whole idea behind implementing a UBI in our quasi-free-market capitalist system. The larger point is that not only is the idea of a UBI decent and moral, because nobody should worry about being homeless or starving in a rich society, but because its much cheaper the the alternative! Only someone completely blinded by ideology (or somehow profiting off of the existing system) would argue that its better to spend $50,000 dollars a year per homeless person to manage shelters and run a bureaucracy if simply giving that homeless person $25,000 a year and achieves a better overall result.
- caloni 11y ago
  If there's only both alternatives, that's right. There's at least another one: spend zero. And don't forget that, after all win the minimum, that's the new zero.
- notahacker 11y ago
  > but because its much cheaper the the alternative But it isn't. A fifth of the UK working age population, for example, is neither registered as unemployed or earning money. Most of them aren't homeless, or entitled to disability benefits and aren't registered as unemployed because for whatever reason they don't need the money. All of them would be eligible for basic income. You can afford to provide much better support for homeless people (many of whose bigger problems cannot be addressed simply by providing them with a regular income) if your budget isn't being stretched by the need to subsidise the perceived basic needs of huge numbers of content people that aren't actually interested in claiming subsidies.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    It's likely they are mostly students or enjoy some kind of disability benefit. You can tax their parents and give the students UBI. The sick will cost anyhow. Or you can exclude students from UBI, that's what you are doing now. I'm not against either.
MawNicker 11y ago
Lol. This sort of statement is often made by people who don't want UBI. "Its just communism/socialism/etc." No its not. Its penance for an otherwise ruthless and unrepentant capitalism which has successfully undermined the value of human labor. Its an invitation to join in on the modern world and an alternative to the paternal condescension which is presently favored. Without it most people will be left to become blatant wage slaves or worse. If we transition to a world where the majority are regularly humiliated and made to feel they're responsible for their own disenfranchisement I suspect I'll end up killing myself. I can't watch it anymore. I didn't succeed because I worked hard. I succeeded because I happened to be smart and I won't be made into an annecdote in support of a system that would have otherwise fucked me. Anyone with the capacity to succeed will readily pay for it via "hard work." It's the people without that capacity that are so "lazy." They literally have no way in which to better themselves. Not in this society. Capitalistic motivation is good and UBI preserves it. But eventually it's only good for a few and we need a solution for everyone else.
- thwarted 11y ago
  Lol. This sort of statement is often made by people who don't want UBI. "Its just communism/socialism/etc." No its not. Its penance for an otherwise ruthless and unrepentant capitalism which has successfully undermined the value of human labor. While there's no denying that capitalism can be ruthless and unrepentant, and what we have for capitalism currently actually is that, calling the progress of capitalism "ruthless" and "unrepentant" is just as loaded as calling UBI communism/socialism/etc, and leads to needlessly heated debates and ideological headbutting. It fails to convince anyone of anything. Even if capitalism isn't ruthless and unrepentant, the value of human labor goes down, and isn't necessarily undermined, when capitalism seeks efficiency. There is no strict requirement that capitalism be ruthless and unrepentant—those are, in fact, human traits that are impossible to apply to the unthinking and unfeeling system that is capitalism. When capitalism replaces human labor with machines, it isn't to undermine the value of human labor, it's to be more efficient. Ultimately, the result is the same, as you describe: humans are unable to exploit their labor for even basic living. But calling out capitalism as some kind of evil hydra that explicitly sets out to destroy the lives and livelihood of the working class is unproductive. That is an unfortunate side effect of capitalism, and of capitalism gaining increased prominence during an age when human labor itself had high intrinsic value but was also relatively abundant. It is a side effect which must be addressed. I find it much more effective to couch UBI in terms of the end result of capitalism: it makes no sense for a capitalistic system to use relatively inefficient humans to do work that machines can do faster and cheaper. To ensure and give inefficient humans jobs that capitalism could otherwise find ways to do sounds more like a socialist makework ideal than UBI does. It is actually in capitalism's best interest to pay people to stay out the areas where they can not perform tasks as well as machines can. This frees up people to find other avenues of contribution, perhaps finding further efficiencies, without using up all their time and energy leveraging their faculties purely to stay alive.

If we want UBI, why not go full communalism or anarcho-collectivism?

by mehrzad 11y ago

If we want UBI, why not go full communalism or anarcho-collectivism?

fapjacks 11y ago

Because capitalism is a phenomenal economic tool?

panic 11y ago

The free market seems to work pretty well for people with money. The idea of UBI is to give everyone money so it works well for everyone. Is there evidence that these alternatives will do any better?

orangecat 11y ago
The free market seems to work pretty well for people with money. The idea of UBI is to give everyone money so it works well for everyone. I'm totally stealing that line.

Daishiman 11y ago

Because you still want an effective market economy; you just don't want people dying and suffering because of it.

StanislavPetrov 11y ago

Because systems based on pure ideology don't work well in reality. Its the whole idea behind implementing a UBI in our quasi-free-market capitalist system. The larger point is that not only is the idea of a UBI decent and moral, because nobody should worry about being homeless or starving in a rich society, but because its much cheaper the the alternative! Only someone completely blinded by ideology (or somehow profiting off of the existing system) would argue that its better to spend $50,000 dollars a year per homeless person to manage shelters and run a bureaucracy if simply giving that homeless person $25,000 a year and achieves a better overall result.

caloni 11y ago
If there's only both alternatives, that's right. There's at least another one: spend zero. And don't forget that, after all win the minimum, that's the new zero.
notahacker 11y ago
> but because its much cheaper the the alternative But it isn't. A fifth of the UK working age population, for example, is neither registered as unemployed or earning money. Most of them aren't homeless, or entitled to disability benefits and aren't registered as unemployed because for whatever reason they don't need the money. All of them would be eligible for basic income. You can afford to provide much better support for homeless people (many of whose bigger problems cannot be addressed simply by providing them with a regular income) if your budget isn't being stretched by the need to subsidise the perceived basic needs of huge numbers of content people that aren't actually interested in claiming subsidies.
- vlehto 11y ago
  It's likely they are mostly students or enjoy some kind of disability benefit. You can tax their parents and give the students UBI. The sick will cost anyhow. Or you can exclude students from UBI, that's what you are doing now. I'm not against either.

MawNicker 11y ago

Lol. This sort of statement is often made by people who don't want UBI. "Its just communism/socialism/etc." No its not. Its penance for an otherwise ruthless and unrepentant capitalism which has successfully undermined the value of human labor. Its an invitation to join in on the modern world and an alternative to the paternal condescension which is presently favored. Without it most people will be left to become blatant wage slaves or worse. If we transition to a world where the majority are regularly humiliated and made to feel they're responsible for their own disenfranchisement I suspect I'll end up killing myself. I can't watch it anymore. I didn't succeed because I worked hard. I succeeded because I happened to be smart and I won't be made into an annecdote in support of a system that would have otherwise fucked me. Anyone with the capacity to succeed will readily pay for it via "hard work." It's the people without that capacity that are so "lazy." They literally have no way in which to better themselves. Not in this society. Capitalistic motivation is good and UBI preserves it. But eventually it's only good for a few and we need a solution for everyone else.

thwarted 11y ago
Lol. This sort of statement is often made by people who don't want UBI. "Its just communism/socialism/etc." No its not. Its penance for an otherwise ruthless and unrepentant capitalism which has successfully undermined the value of human labor. While there's no denying that capitalism can be ruthless and unrepentant, and what we have for capitalism currently actually is that, calling the progress of capitalism "ruthless" and "unrepentant" is just as loaded as calling UBI communism/socialism/etc, and leads to needlessly heated debates and ideological headbutting. It fails to convince anyone of anything. Even if capitalism isn't ruthless and unrepentant, the value of human labor goes down, and isn't necessarily undermined, when capitalism seeks efficiency. There is no strict requirement that capitalism be ruthless and unrepentant—those are, in fact, human traits that are impossible to apply to the unthinking and unfeeling system that is capitalism. When capitalism replaces human labor with machines, it isn't to undermine the value of human labor, it's to be more efficient. Ultimately, the result is the same, as you describe: humans are unable to exploit their labor for even basic living. But calling out capitalism as some kind of evil hydra that explicitly sets out to destroy the lives and livelihood of the working class is unproductive. That is an unfortunate side effect of capitalism, and of capitalism gaining increased prominence during an age when human labor itself had high intrinsic value but was also relatively abundant. It is a side effect which must be addressed. I find it much more effective to couch UBI in terms of the end result of capitalism: it makes no sense for a capitalistic system to use relatively inefficient humans to do work that machines can do faster and cheaper. To ensure and give inefficient humans jobs that capitalism could otherwise find ways to do sounds more like a socialist makework ideal than UBI does. It is actually in capitalism's best interest to pay people to stay out the areas where they can not perform tasks as well as machines can. This frees up people to find other avenues of contribution, perhaps finding further efficiencies, without using up all their time and energy leveraging their faculties purely to stay alive.