5 ms·

The answer is actually yes. But only if you drop the current crop of disproved morality based economic models that make up the bulk of the curriculum at most sc

The answer is actually yes. But only if you drop the current crop of disproved morality based economic models that make up the bulk of the curriculum at most schools of business. The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become without necessarily impacting the real world industrial/agricultural output, but because of dogmatic policies designed to facility wealth hording we pretend that we cannot really end poverty. Another problem is that we measure societal success based on how well the 20% richest lives rather then on how well the 20% poorest live. which again support wealth hording policies that will eventually clash with the ideal that democracy, freedom and equally, should be available to everyone not just an small elite as was the case in ancient Rome or Greece(and to some extend The American south until ca 1970).

mantas 5y ago
That doesn't explain at all what would happen if 50% workforce walked out the door tomorrow and expected the rest of workforce to provide them. Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though. If I'm reading it right, that's the opposite of what the person you replied to was suggesting: > The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become
  - mantas 5y ago
    I'm not sure how to read it TBH. When you print money, value of assets keep going up with the inflation. So the rich who have assets would stay rich, the poor would loose. If OP wanted to claim the opposite, I don't see how it makes sense.
- dagw 5y ago
  if 50% workforce walked out the door tomorrow You could always import more, UBI exempt, workers if that becomes a problem. Of course that might bring some of its own problems.
  - mantas 5y ago
    Why would you come to work to a country with super high taxes? On the other hand, workforce may be coming from another UBI territory with same taxation. What would happen in their former country? Would they still pay UBI taxes to it?
    - dagw 5y ago
      Why would you come to work to a country with super high taxes? Because even with the "super high taxes" you'll probably still earn more than you would in your home country of Honduras or Mozambique or wherever labor will be imported from. People are crossing the border today for a chance to illegally pick produce or work low level construction. Making that easier will only make it more popular. Plus adding a clear path to Citizenship (say after working 7-10 years on a non-UBI visa) will only make it easier to attract people. As to who gets UBI what happens when you leave a country with UBI, that is an interesting question. My initial reaction would be that you can only get UBI if you are a citizen or permanent resident AND live in the country (say a minimum of 4-6 month out of the year). If you emigrate you lose UBI, but that is a separate discussion.
      - mantas 5y ago
        If they're not eligible for UBI, but still pay full taxes, their pay would be meager for those poor paying jobs. If not negative. If someone is well educated and working in a well-paid sector, it may be not worth it to come to UBI country. Unless one lives in a complete shithole without stable government. Of course, then someone is not likely to be well educated... In most theories I saw, UBI would supplement low wages and become negative only for well off people. So you'd have to pay a nice sum of money for someone to have same take-home pay as UBI jobless. This means UBI countries would need high import tariffs to compete with cheap import from non-UBI. Now what would be nice is to work illegally in an UBI country. Path to ubi sounds like a massive Ponzi scheme TBH. Come work for 10 years for an easy retirement. Especially if you can move back to your homecountry and keep earning UBI.
- Stranger43 5y ago
  Is that any real difference from today where less then 30% actually works in direct production? Remember that 50% is an majority and would be entitled to basically run the economy as they saw fit, and yet we have never had a case(outside of apartheid/slave states) where an majority did that. What UBI represent is more of an re-balancing on the employer/employee power balance as it grant's the employee the power to say NO without facing complete ruin. For UBI to work the presumption that people wont just retire to cheap housing in the countryside living on bread, beer and love, but for the most part seek some kind of meaningful occupation, which real data based economical models seems to suggest they will. The problem here is of cause that everything about UBI invalidates any economic theory compatible with an moral philosophy derived from Luther and Calvin's (protestant) Punitive Christianity, which unfortunately is the base for a lot of modern economic theory.
  - mantas 5y ago
    Be it direct production or not, it's still a part of modern economy. When people think about UBI, they think about living on UBI and still using products and services of a modern economy. Not living off the grid in a shack bumfucknowhere and doing substance farming (and brewing beer, of course) on the side. If people flat-out dropped out of the economy, that'd create another interesting problem. Who would use produce of those people who keep participating? Would participating people produce&consume enough to put together UBI for the folks who got out? Going further... Off-grid folk would make bread & beer and those wouldn't be taxed. UBI-producer would make bread & beer and those would be taxed through the roof. What if off-grid folks kickstart black market and trade non-taxed stuff between themselves? While still receiving UBI from UBI-producers. Then it'd make sense for an UBI-producer to go shopping in said black market too :) Buying less products from other UBI-producers.
jtbayly 5y ago
> weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare Why would this happen? The rich and powerful do not have tons of cash. They have tons of assets, like houses, land, buildings, companies, boats, cars, etc. Inflation simply makes all of those things more valuable, so their wealth is not affected. Meanwhile all the extra free money that everybody else has is still not enough to buy those actual assets. Aren’t you pretending that supply and demand doesn’t exist?
- Stranger43 5y ago
  All of this is assets that can loose value when inflation goes up, as they are denoted in the same currency that's inflating the reason they don't now is that we deliberately tie the value of money to the value of land. The problem for the wannabe feudalists is the same that killed off the landed gentry, when workers got rights and privileges in the 18th century, is that land not worked is not really worth anything so they will have to spend more and more of their profit maintaining the productivity as people gain more economic power to live elsewhere or differently. And cheap land is around especially if you break free of the large cities.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    So... yeah, you're ignoring supply and demand. We haven't tied the value of money to the value of land. Land has value. If you want it, you have to pay for it. (Unless you are advocating for the government to seize all property.) If the value of money goes down (which is what you said to let happen), then the cost of land goes up. On what basis do you claim that hard assets will decrease in value as cash decreases in value? Can you name some examples where this has happened? Edit: I don't think you can, because the definition of inflation means that the costs of things are going up.

mantas 5y ago

That doesn't explain at all what would happen if 50% workforce walked out the door tomorrow and expected the rest of workforce to provide them. Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though. If I'm reading it right, that's the opposite of what the person you replied to was suggesting: > The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become
- mantas 5y ago
  I'm not sure how to read it TBH. When you print money, value of assets keep going up with the inflation. So the rich who have assets would stay rich, the poor would loose. If OP wanted to claim the opposite, I don't see how it makes sense.
dagw 5y ago
if 50% workforce walked out the door tomorrow You could always import more, UBI exempt, workers if that becomes a problem. Of course that might bring some of its own problems.
- mantas 5y ago
  Why would you come to work to a country with super high taxes? On the other hand, workforce may be coming from another UBI territory with same taxation. What would happen in their former country? Would they still pay UBI taxes to it?
  - dagw 5y ago
    Why would you come to work to a country with super high taxes? Because even with the "super high taxes" you'll probably still earn more than you would in your home country of Honduras or Mozambique or wherever labor will be imported from. People are crossing the border today for a chance to illegally pick produce or work low level construction. Making that easier will only make it more popular. Plus adding a clear path to Citizenship (say after working 7-10 years on a non-UBI visa) will only make it easier to attract people. As to who gets UBI what happens when you leave a country with UBI, that is an interesting question. My initial reaction would be that you can only get UBI if you are a citizen or permanent resident AND live in the country (say a minimum of 4-6 month out of the year). If you emigrate you lose UBI, but that is a separate discussion.
    - mantas 5y ago
      If they're not eligible for UBI, but still pay full taxes, their pay would be meager for those poor paying jobs. If not negative. If someone is well educated and working in a well-paid sector, it may be not worth it to come to UBI country. Unless one lives in a complete shithole without stable government. Of course, then someone is not likely to be well educated... In most theories I saw, UBI would supplement low wages and become negative only for well off people. So you'd have to pay a nice sum of money for someone to have same take-home pay as UBI jobless. This means UBI countries would need high import tariffs to compete with cheap import from non-UBI. Now what would be nice is to work illegally in an UBI country. Path to ubi sounds like a massive Ponzi scheme TBH. Come work for 10 years for an easy retirement. Especially if you can move back to your homecountry and keep earning UBI.
Stranger43 5y ago
Is that any real difference from today where less then 30% actually works in direct production? Remember that 50% is an majority and would be entitled to basically run the economy as they saw fit, and yet we have never had a case(outside of apartheid/slave states) where an majority did that. What UBI represent is more of an re-balancing on the employer/employee power balance as it grant's the employee the power to say NO without facing complete ruin. For UBI to work the presumption that people wont just retire to cheap housing in the countryside living on bread, beer and love, but for the most part seek some kind of meaningful occupation, which real data based economical models seems to suggest they will. The problem here is of cause that everything about UBI invalidates any economic theory compatible with an moral philosophy derived from Luther and Calvin's (protestant) Punitive Christianity, which unfortunately is the base for a lot of modern economic theory.
- mantas 5y ago
  Be it direct production or not, it's still a part of modern economy. When people think about UBI, they think about living on UBI and still using products and services of a modern economy. Not living off the grid in a shack bumfucknowhere and doing substance farming (and brewing beer, of course) on the side. If people flat-out dropped out of the economy, that'd create another interesting problem. Who would use produce of those people who keep participating? Would participating people produce&consume enough to put together UBI for the folks who got out? Going further... Off-grid folk would make bread & beer and those wouldn't be taxed. UBI-producer would make bread & beer and those would be taxed through the roof. What if off-grid folks kickstart black market and trade non-taxed stuff between themselves? While still receiving UBI from UBI-producers. Then it'd make sense for an UBI-producer to go shopping in said black market too :) Buying less products from other UBI-producers.

jtbayly 5y ago

> weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare Why would this happen? The rich and powerful do not have tons of cash. They have tons of assets, like houses, land, buildings, companies, boats, cars, etc. Inflation simply makes all of those things more valuable, so their wealth is not affected. Meanwhile all the extra free money that everybody else has is still not enough to buy those actual assets. Aren’t you pretending that supply and demand doesn’t exist?

Stranger43 5y ago
All of this is assets that can loose value when inflation goes up, as they are denoted in the same currency that's inflating the reason they don't now is that we deliberately tie the value of money to the value of land. The problem for the wannabe feudalists is the same that killed off the landed gentry, when workers got rights and privileges in the 18th century, is that land not worked is not really worth anything so they will have to spend more and more of their profit maintaining the productivity as people gain more economic power to live elsewhere or differently. And cheap land is around especially if you break free of the large cities.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  So... yeah, you're ignoring supply and demand. We haven't tied the value of money to the value of land. Land has value. If you want it, you have to pay for it. (Unless you are advocating for the government to seize all property.) If the value of money goes down (which is what you said to let happen), then the cost of land goes up. On what basis do you claim that hard assets will decrease in value as cash decreases in value? Can you name some examples where this has happened? Edit: I don't think you can, because the definition of inflation means that the costs of things are going up.