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Is it possible that the USA already has a de facto oligarchy where a small number of rich people control everything and deliver it to the masses?

DanielBMarkham 9y ago
I was more interested in understanding what the author was saying than debating it, but yes, it's quite possible. I'm a firm believer that the jury is still out on UBI, but if you ask me, this is the best cautionary argument I've read so far. It's a simple mental experiment: if 90% of the people receive money and 10% make it, what forms of stable government could you have? There's only two. The first is where the government looks after consumption at the expense of production -- with runaway debt and a debt default spiral. The other is an oligarchy where people are "tended to" I believe the UBI folks are all in the second camp, whether they realize it or not. There are real structural issues at play here, and modernization should produce much more leisure time than it has. Kudos to folks trying to experiment to make a difference. Doing nothing is not very enlightening. But what this author seems to be getting at is something like this: our individual struggles inside the economic system we've created to provide value to others makes us better participants in a representative republic. These experiences are based on real-world conditions and billions of little experiments we all perform daily. Basing our voting decisions on all of this anecdotal and irrational data sucks, but it sucks much less than simply picking whatever meme turns us on the most at the moment all around the theme of more consumption. It sucks, but it's a workable system. The other way, not so much. Never thought of it like that. Iteresting.
- jjawssd 9y ago
  "Modernization should produce much more leisure time than it has" I fully disagree. Modernization changes the problems we face but we use the solutions as leverage to overcome our next challenges, whether real or imagined.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago

I was more interested in understanding what the author was saying than debating it, but yes, it's quite possible. I'm a firm believer that the jury is still out on UBI, but if you ask me, this is the best cautionary argument I've read so far. It's a simple mental experiment: if 90% of the people receive money and 10% make it, what forms of stable government could you have? There's only two. The first is where the government looks after consumption at the expense of production -- with runaway debt and a debt default spiral. The other is an oligarchy where people are "tended to" I believe the UBI folks are all in the second camp, whether they realize it or not. There are real structural issues at play here, and modernization should produce much more leisure time than it has. Kudos to folks trying to experiment to make a difference. Doing nothing is not very enlightening. But what this author seems to be getting at is something like this: our individual struggles inside the economic system we've created to provide value to others makes us better participants in a representative republic. These experiences are based on real-world conditions and billions of little experiments we all perform daily. Basing our voting decisions on all of this anecdotal and irrational data sucks, but it sucks much less than simply picking whatever meme turns us on the most at the moment all around the theme of more consumption. It sucks, but it's a workable system. The other way, not so much. Never thought of it like that. Iteresting.

jjawssd 9y ago
"Modernization should produce much more leisure time than it has" I fully disagree. Modernization changes the problems we face but we use the solutions as leverage to overcome our next challenges, whether real or imagined.