4 ms·

I think this is a completely irrational level of doom-and-gloom. Just because the United Kingdom has voted to exit the EU, doesn't necessarily mean that it is a

by lhnz 10y ago

I think this is a completely irrational level of doom-and-gloom. Just because the United Kingdom has voted to exit the EU, doesn't necessarily mean that it is about to become Nazi Germany. There are certainly currents of nationalism affecting Europe right now, and it's important that we don't bury our heads in the sand or run away from the problems affecting people. There has to be a way to deratchet politics without slamming the door angrily and fleeing the country. The questions I think about are: Is it possible to create a better economic arrangement for our people? Can we create a safety net for working class people that stops the growth of nationalism?

madaxe_again 10y ago
That's what you all told me when I said it'd be an out vote, and when I said trump would be the GOP candidate. Just call me Cassandra.
- lhnz 10y ago
  Well, I didn't. I've spent the last year expecting Trump to become president, and the UK to leave Europe. In my mind, it was only a matter of when. If it wasn't the Conservative party that had called the referendum, eventually UKIP would either have ended up in a coalition or seizing a majority. In fact, I think it's better that the establishment should try to grapple with these politics now instead of letting them fester too long. At least now certain things have been dispelled, and the machinery behinds the politics is beginning to be exposed. For example, the idea that we could get £350 million of free money for the NHS just by leaving the EU; or the idea that progressive politics are trickling down into poor communities and helping them to understand that they're rightfully poor because they're not competitive in global markets, and shouldn't blame immigrant workers working alongside them (or whatever it is they're meant to tell themselves late at night).
visarga 10y ago
> Is it possible to create a better economic arrangement for our people? Bootstrap a basic income. We don't need to wait for the state or the multinationals to have mercy on us. I don't think they will. We should take matters into our own hands. My idea is that people should create non-profit associations for the purpose of assuring their basic necessities. These associations should buy land to farm, own factories, organize their own education and health systems. Being owned by their founders, such organizations's sole purpose will be the well being of their creators. In order to work out, these co-ops need to become independent of external conditions. They need to have a full stack of services, just like a country in miniature: they need to have farms, factories, hospitals, schools and domestic homes. When the robot age will finally come, people will find it very hard to find a job. In the past, people could trade their skills and effort for money, but now, they have nothing to trade for. So the only solution is to rely on themselves, not on the new economy which doesn't need them except as consumers, or on the government which is too large and too corrupted to be trusted. We should boostrap our own basic income.
- BjoernKW 10y ago
  Much as I like the general idea: What you're describing has been tried before, hasn't it? Sometimes successfully, sometimes less so, a successful example being the kibbutz movement and the most obvious failure being large-scale communism. Even feudalism can in some way be considered as a manner of providing basic income. The problem is: How do you accommodate everyone's personal gifts, passions and proclivities? Not everyone's a farmer or a physician, so not everyone's of practical use for your proposed commune. This is likely to create envy and resentment.
  - zanny 10y ago
    Except that doesn't seem to be what he is proposing - you don't have a coop to assign labor, you have a coop to control wealth to provide livelihood. The membership does whatever it wants, the coop will, if necessary, pay people to farm its land or manufacture its textiles, but the cornerstone of UBI is that as automation advances the amount of human labor required for any of those constituent parts of livelihood will continue to approach zero, and when it does, you now have an apparatus of the means of production that provides for all your members needs.

by lhnz 10y ago

madaxe_again 10y ago

That's what you all told me when I said it'd be an out vote, and when I said trump would be the GOP candidate. Just call me Cassandra.

lhnz 10y ago
Well, I didn't. I've spent the last year expecting Trump to become president, and the UK to leave Europe. In my mind, it was only a matter of when. If it wasn't the Conservative party that had called the referendum, eventually UKIP would either have ended up in a coalition or seizing a majority. In fact, I think it's better that the establishment should try to grapple with these politics now instead of letting them fester too long. At least now certain things have been dispelled, and the machinery behinds the politics is beginning to be exposed. For example, the idea that we could get £350 million of free money for the NHS just by leaving the EU; or the idea that progressive politics are trickling down into poor communities and helping them to understand that they're rightfully poor because they're not competitive in global markets, and shouldn't blame immigrant workers working alongside them (or whatever it is they're meant to tell themselves late at night).

visarga 10y ago

> Is it possible to create a better economic arrangement for our people? Bootstrap a basic income. We don't need to wait for the state or the multinationals to have mercy on us. I don't think they will. We should take matters into our own hands. My idea is that people should create non-profit associations for the purpose of assuring their basic necessities. These associations should buy land to farm, own factories, organize their own education and health systems. Being owned by their founders, such organizations's sole purpose will be the well being of their creators. In order to work out, these co-ops need to become independent of external conditions. They need to have a full stack of services, just like a country in miniature: they need to have farms, factories, hospitals, schools and domestic homes. When the robot age will finally come, people will find it very hard to find a job. In the past, people could trade their skills and effort for money, but now, they have nothing to trade for. So the only solution is to rely on themselves, not on the new economy which doesn't need them except as consumers, or on the government which is too large and too corrupted to be trusted. We should boostrap our own basic income.

BjoernKW 10y ago
Much as I like the general idea: What you're describing has been tried before, hasn't it? Sometimes successfully, sometimes less so, a successful example being the kibbutz movement and the most obvious failure being large-scale communism. Even feudalism can in some way be considered as a manner of providing basic income. The problem is: How do you accommodate everyone's personal gifts, passions and proclivities? Not everyone's a farmer or a physician, so not everyone's of practical use for your proposed commune. This is likely to create envy and resentment.
- zanny 10y ago
  Except that doesn't seem to be what he is proposing - you don't have a coop to assign labor, you have a coop to control wealth to provide livelihood. The membership does whatever it wants, the coop will, if necessary, pay people to farm its land or manufacture its textiles, but the cornerstone of UBI is that as automation advances the amount of human labor required for any of those constituent parts of livelihood will continue to approach zero, and when it does, you now have an apparatus of the means of production that provides for all your members needs.