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Universal Basic Income – A Report for Unions [pdf]
- lopmotr 7y agoThe arguments against chapter doesn't mention what seems to me to be the killer reason - that people are very bad at enjoying life without a compelled purpose. Doing work gives us the motivation to pursue our hobbies. Being useful keeps people sane. Having a lifetime of free food, shelter, and consumption of entertainment would be torture. That's the sort of lifestyle that leads to drug addiction, suicide, crime. If there really are going to be a lot of unemployed in the future, that itself is the problem, not their lack of income.
- erobbins 7y agoBased on a sample size of 1 (me), I don't think that's a reason at all. I took a year off once and being able to to whatever I want every single day was awesome. I went back to work because I needed money, not because I wanted to.
- lopmotr 7y agoBut did you build things or work hard to develop some skills or otherwise feel like you're improving something? Or did you scroll through Facebook and drink alcohol all day? Many people don't have an interest in anything fulfilling.
- aey 7y agoDo you have any statistics to back that? Poverty sounds like the more likely cause of all those things than basic income.
- maxander 7y agoThis argument works only if you consider those of us lucky enough to have interesting jobs, which we had some hand in choosing. Do you honestly believe that the person who cleans the toilets at your work thinks that this labor gives his life meaning?
- cwbrandsma 7y agoYet those jobs still need to be done.
- maxander 7y agoThat’s the other thing- they still would get done. All the jobs we really need would stick around under UBI and we would have people working them. We would just have to pay them more, since their other option wouldn’t be starvation.
- adolph 7y agoMaybe some do, maybe some see it as a means to a different meaning. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/janitor-secretly-amassed-an-8-million-fortune.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/janitor-secretly-amassed-an-...
- lopmotr 7y agoHe might not believe it, but it may well be true if the alternative is watching TV all day.
- bellerose 7y agoPeople manage without the difficulty you claim. Others are not privileged to even have hobbies because of the financial burden while employed. People should be able to choose what's best for them. Otherwise life is torture.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jchanimal 7y agoIt's clear from the cover letter that this report is written by people biased in favor of waged labor. I think that the economic pressure to work is a terrible thing that limits most people's potential in ways big and small. The sooner we can be rid of it, the better. There are other ways to make meaning, than to be running from poverty.
- idlewords 7y agoYou sound like someone who once lived on my sofa
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- patcon 7y agoSo what did this person do when they weren't on your sofa?
- idlewords 7y agoNot a heck of a lot
- put_it_this_way 7y agoLooking back on life, I've often been surrounded by a ratio of like 5:1, people doing nothing while I bust my fucking ass. Me being the one, to maybe five other morons, maybe more, maybe less. There are A LOT of idiotic jobs, A LOT of idiots holding them down, and in many cases it's upper eschelon assholes delegating to puppy dogs, running around in circles, everyone wasting everyone else's time. Put a default paycheck on the table, enough to cover room and board, and the truly wasteful members of the upper eschelon lose their ability to command minions, and order their wasteful behaviors around on a whim. I don't think you get what that might mean. Have you ever had a pointy-haired boss. I know you must have. I read your blog. Go back in time, and imagine getting all those years of working worthless jobs for losers back. Getting your youth back. Using your own judgement to determine what's valuable, and putting your extra effort there. Maybe, just maybe, it could be just as bad, letting the grunts chose where they fight. But you know what? Maybe not. Because there's still the leverage of permitting people to put their work where they want to see it make a difference, by gatekeeping according to acquired skills. So we disassemble all the made-for-tv productized infommercial industrial waste, and obviate a lot of dead end media, journalism and advertising, and ostensibly we get real traction in return. Maybe, maybe not. But my gut tells me I'll spend less time as a servile obsequious worm, more time as someone finding genuine worth in their actions, and so too many others should notice the same effect.
- rayiner 7y agoAs someone who grew up in the post-Clinton “new left” exposure to some of the “old left” helps me understand the right a lot better. They’re afraid of socialism because folks like trade unionists actually espoused socialism. Not like Scandinavian market socialism, but like “quoting Marx on the first page” socialism.
- selimthegrim 7y agoCf. Labour’s old Clause Four
- rayiner 7y agoThanks, I didn’t know about that.
- robotbikes 7y agoWhere is the evidence that people need a "compelled purpose" ? Many people struggling to survive are not gaining meaning from being threatened by the constant insecurity of poverty, homelessness, poor nutrition and general stress from fear that someone else more desperate will try to take from you something you need. If this stress is removed from people's lives the thought is they'd have a better chance to actually figure out what they want to do and pursue higher goals than simply survival in a hostile environment. But seriously I've known quite affluent people who chose to work jobs because they wanted something to do not because they needed money and I think that people in general would probably be more engaged with whatever activity they actively chose vs. the ones they we're compelled to do. I also think that there is a general idea that certain people have that they are somehow better than other people and while they might be able to choose a higher goal the "poor" would just be lazy and do nothing with their lives. I tend to believe that a lot of the reasons people are "lazy" is because they understand or believe that the game is rigged. Any way you look at it our economic system does tend to highly favor those who were born into situations where they didn't have to worry about money constantly and so I tend to believe removing that worry one way or another should be a basic goal of humanity in general.
- RickJWagner 7y agoHacker News should model UBI. Just give every member 10 'upvotes' a week or so.
- eatdinner 7y agothey just canceled the universal income project in my province early because of p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶i̶c̶s̶ the budget, before any research was concluded. so there is no evidence one way or the other about its effects :(
- thrower123 7y agoYou think the opiod epidemic is bad now?
- lokidokiro 7y agoSo the unions don't like UBI because it isn't socialist enough for them? It should be no wonder why conservatives don't like unions. The whole purpose of unions is to create a monopoly on labor and undermine the market for their benefit.