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" The report says the fund could help people: "A low-skilled worker might reduce their working hours to attain skills enabling career progression. "The fund c

" The report says the fund could help people: "A low-skilled worker might reduce their working hours to attain skills enabling career progression. "The fund could provide the impetus to turn an entrepreneurial idea into a reality. It could be the support that enables a carer to be there for a loved one." " I'm skeptical of the long term implications of this logic, and this reads as a very neoliberal solution. 416 pounds a month for two years is not a lot of money. Job training and child/elderly care are difficult, time consuming, and expensive. This seems to be why they are prime tasks to be run by the state. Giving people a small cash sum, and telling them to teach themselves new skills so that they're ready for the economy of the future feels ignorant and wasteful. If you're working a part time retail job that is about to be automated, what type of "job training" can this realistically provide. Or, if you're taking care of an elderly parent, or a young child, this is far from a replacement for more robust social services. I truly want to believe in a UBI in some form, but I find the language of "entrepreneurial idea[s]" to be a little repulsive. Not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur. Not every poor and middle class citizen can become a successful start up founder and small business owner. UBI could be fantastic but is not a replacement for the once robust social safety nets that are being chipped away at (or decimated) in the US/UK. I am not saying it is the case in this article -- I know little about the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce -- but anytime I see someone advocating for UBI I think it is worthwhile to interrogate their positionality and their imagination of the future. The silicon valley libertarian billionaire dream of a UBI seems different from someone with a genuine commitment to improving the quality of life for everyone. There are no quick fixes to poverty, skill gap, and the problems wrought by automation. Looking towards UBI as a panacea feels dangerous in that it can prevent addressing the more structural problems at play.

Asooka 9y ago
Or to put it in simple numbers, every startup founder needs ten employees, who themselves have to not be startup founders. Unless 90% of the people who reach age ~35 die, and then 90% of the survivors die at ~50, there is no way to guarantee an entrepreneurial career path to everybody. Or, I guess, robots waves arms. What I suspect will happen is that people will be able to leave dead-end jobs that are stressful and provide little to no value to them. Which in turn might crash the economy, because while not having the next Juicero isn't that big of a deal, not having anyone picking up the garbage on time is a real issue. Or, it might end up with employers offering a fair salary that fairly redistributes the gains in productivity afforded by modern civilization (I almost wrote this with a straight face). In any case, UBI is not just a money redistribution scheme, it's also a power redistribution scheme, because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent.
- 9034725985 9y ago
  > I suspect will happen is that people will be able to leave dead-end jobs that are stressful and provide little to no value to them. Which in turn might crash the economy, because while not having the next Juicero isn't that big of a deal, not having anyone picking up the garbage on time is a real issue. Or, it might end up with employers offering a fair salary that fairly redistributes the gains in productivity afforded by modern civilization (I almost wrote this with a straight face). In any case, UBI is not just a money redistribution scheme, it's also a power redistribution scheme, because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent. This is the main reason I want a basic income. I want persons who have a job to be the same persons who want that job. If nobody wants that job then there is something wrong about that job - maybe it doesn't pay well or maybe the job conditions are horrible. But in any case, I think we will all be better off if our workers are people who want that particular job rather than people who are stuck with that job and can't afford to quit.
  - mjevans 9y ago
    I like to think of it as making up for the fact that there isn't any other place someone that doesn't want to be part of the current status quo can just say "I've had it, I'm going off on my own way". All the land is taken, owned, and occupied; and all of the best places for starting your own settlement were /long/ ago occupied, let alone the marginal ones. I don't want to do any of the above, but having that /option/ gave a default alternative to being an employee and thus meant that there had to be actual benefit in such a relationship.
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    Alot of these bullshit jobs where created to work people tired, that otherwise would storm the barricades and burn down paradise.
- Already__Taken 9y ago
  > because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent. Has anyone studied potential impacts for health and safety related incidents alone for this? How many tired lorry drivers can be stopped blocking the motorway for 5 hours before it pays off economically.
tom_mellior 9y ago
> I truly want to believe in a UBI in some form, but I find the language of "entrepreneurial idea[s]" to be a little repulsive. I agree. I mean, it would certainly enable some people to become entrepreneurs, and that's awesome! But it shouldn't be phrased in a way that people feel forced to become entrepreneurs, and feel worthless if they don't manage to. (That's one of the problems with unemployment "benefits" in many places, which are tied to pressure to find a job, any job, and lose the "benefits" if you "succeed". No wonder many people crack under this pressure and become depressed alcoholics.) The same goes for worries a UBI might decrease "employment". Um, yes? If there were a UBI I could live off, I might well drop my job and do research/develop free software full time. That would be a decrease in employment but quite possibly a net win for society. We need to stop viewing everything through the lens of (paid) work ethics.
closeparen 9y ago
>and this reads as a very neoliberal solution Cash transfers are neoliberal now? I'm starting to think this word means "whatever I don't like" or "moderate liberal" - it's certainly not within the politics or Reagan and Thatcher (the typical definition of neoliberalism) to redistribute income like this.

Asooka 9y ago

Or to put it in simple numbers, every startup founder needs ten employees, who themselves have to not be startup founders. Unless 90% of the people who reach age ~35 die, and then 90% of the survivors die at ~50, there is no way to guarantee an entrepreneurial career path to everybody. Or, I guess, robots waves arms. What I suspect will happen is that people will be able to leave dead-end jobs that are stressful and provide little to no value to them. Which in turn might crash the economy, because while not having the next Juicero isn't that big of a deal, not having anyone picking up the garbage on time is a real issue. Or, it might end up with employers offering a fair salary that fairly redistributes the gains in productivity afforded by modern civilization (I almost wrote this with a straight face). In any case, UBI is not just a money redistribution scheme, it's also a power redistribution scheme, because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent.

9034725985 9y ago
> I suspect will happen is that people will be able to leave dead-end jobs that are stressful and provide little to no value to them. Which in turn might crash the economy, because while not having the next Juicero isn't that big of a deal, not having anyone picking up the garbage on time is a real issue. Or, it might end up with employers offering a fair salary that fairly redistributes the gains in productivity afforded by modern civilization (I almost wrote this with a straight face). In any case, UBI is not just a money redistribution scheme, it's also a power redistribution scheme, because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent. This is the main reason I want a basic income. I want persons who have a job to be the same persons who want that job. If nobody wants that job then there is something wrong about that job - maybe it doesn't pay well or maybe the job conditions are horrible. But in any case, I think we will all be better off if our workers are people who want that particular job rather than people who are stuck with that job and can't afford to quit.
- mjevans 9y ago
  I like to think of it as making up for the fact that there isn't any other place someone that doesn't want to be part of the current status quo can just say "I've had it, I'm going off on my own way". All the land is taken, owned, and occupied; and all of the best places for starting your own settlement were /long/ ago occupied, let alone the marginal ones. I don't want to do any of the above, but having that /option/ gave a default alternative to being an employee and thus meant that there had to be actual benefit in such a relationship.
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  Alot of these bullshit jobs where created to work people tired, that otherwise would storm the barricades and burn down paradise.
Already__Taken 9y ago
> because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent. Has anyone studied potential impacts for health and safety related incidents alone for this? How many tired lorry drivers can be stopped blocking the motorway for 5 hours before it pays off economically.

tom_mellior 9y ago

> I truly want to believe in a UBI in some form, but I find the language of "entrepreneurial idea[s]" to be a little repulsive. I agree. I mean, it would certainly enable some people to become entrepreneurs, and that's awesome! But it shouldn't be phrased in a way that people feel forced to become entrepreneurs, and feel worthless if they don't manage to. (That's one of the problems with unemployment "benefits" in many places, which are tied to pressure to find a job, any job, and lose the "benefits" if you "succeed". No wonder many people crack under this pressure and become depressed alcoholics.) The same goes for worries a UBI might decrease "employment". Um, yes? If there were a UBI I could live off, I might well drop my job and do research/develop free software full time. That would be a decrease in employment but quite possibly a net win for society. We need to stop viewing everything through the lens of (paid) work ethics.

closeparen 9y ago

>and this reads as a very neoliberal solution Cash transfers are neoliberal now? I'm starting to think this word means "whatever I don't like" or "moderate liberal" - it's certainly not within the politics or Reagan and Thatcher (the typical definition of neoliberalism) to redistribute income like this.