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> Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income Which communist country has or had UBI? Because I am not aware of any, nor do I regard it as communist. So what do

> Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income Which communist country has or had UBI? Because I am not aware of any, nor do I regard it as communist. So what do I mean by communism? All economies are run by a mixture of markets and commands. Communism is any economy that is largely command-based (all real economies are a mixture of the two, of course). UBI is where someone is given a regular amount of money and can spend it however they like (i.e. market based). The USSR was not run like this. Instead it was command-based, e.g. Krushchev build millions of Krushchevkas (standardised apartment housing) and people were allocated an apartment. So when Andreessen says "Communist-inspired Universal Basic Income" what he really means is presumably "I disapprove of UBI so I'm going to smear it by inaccurately associating it with something I presume my readers dislike". IMO this is deeply dishonest.

alephnerd 4y ago
Ironically, Libertarian-Republican Alaska has been practicing UBI since the 70s after reaping in the Oil Boom - https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/alaskas-experience-shows-promise-universal-basic-income/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wha...
neilwilson 4y ago
What's funny is that it isn't communist. UBI is a free market belief utilising the money illusion to make capitalist extraction seem 'fair' to those who can't see past a dollar sign. Hence why Friedman made the case for it via 'negative income tax' In reality it is people who don't want to work for a living being fed and clothed by forcible extraction of time and output from those that do work for a living - with the extraction being laundered by a capitalist intermediary in the usual fashion. If the workers owned the means of production, then they would take Friday off instead of working extra to produce a surplus for UBI people to consume for nothing material in return. In a communist economy everybody has to take their share of the 'socially necessary labour' if they want anything out of the communal pot. You have to use your time working for the benefit of others. That's a guaranteed job, not a guaranteed pension.
- dogcomplex 4y ago
  It's not necessarily extraction from those that do work for a living if the tax to pay for the UBI is largely a wealth-tax taking the majority from wealthy investors (who, by the conventional wisdom of capitalism, do exactly what you accuse and extract time and output from those that do work for a living for the "hard labor" of managing an index fund). If that tax is balanced to offset the two, well - you've got a fair society (and one likely to eliminate billionaires over time). I estimate that wealth tax price to be around the average cost of living - as any less and those are people who have no choice but to accept whatever poor labor deals are put in front of them, which enables the capitalist to extract more value than the labor is worth. If people have their costs of living covered and freedom to pick and choose to labor or not, then it doesn't matter if your net worth is 10k or 10M, you're going to accept a similar wage for similar work. (well, not entirely - but at least at that point it's about desire for luxuries not hard desperation) A truly Communist economy takes this much further and splits things evenly from the start. Though I'd argue you get there with a very-high wealth tax and UBI. That doesn't necessarily mean the society is producing a lot of goods though - especially if you just uplifted most of your citizenry that were only doing those shitty jobs because they would literally starve otherwise. But to communism's not-credit, there haven't been many great implementations solving the motivation problem yet either. I suspect a gradual UBI/wealth tax combo is going to do a lot better at easing in motivation and crucially - preventing violent backlash from those in power - than any sudden shift to a fully-communist system. Personally, that is.
  - neilwilson 4y ago
    It’s always an extraction from the working person. The rich only have money. They don’t have or produce any stuff. To believe otherwise is to fall for the money illusion. The tax should be returned to the worker who has earned it, not redistributed to another person who expects to consume without producing.
    - dogcomplex 4y ago
      Due to the nature of poor people having no economic option except to do labor, the above system would effectively only return the money back to the workers. Anyone with enough wealth accumulated to no longer need to work would be paying more in taxes than they receive by UBI As for whether the entire system of investing materials/capital when a project is risky should be rewarded at all (ostensibly the rich class' job) - mine is a conservative take. It could be rewarded less, certainly (via a wealth tax). Completely removing that mechanism ("money illusion") seems like a recipe for a society where there is little point in taking any risky venture.

alephnerd 4y ago

Ironically, Libertarian-Republican Alaska has been practicing UBI since the 70s after reaping in the Oil Boom - https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/alaskas-experience-shows-promise-universal-basic-income/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wha...

neilwilson 4y ago

What's funny is that it isn't communist. UBI is a free market belief utilising the money illusion to make capitalist extraction seem 'fair' to those who can't see past a dollar sign. Hence why Friedman made the case for it via 'negative income tax' In reality it is people who don't want to work for a living being fed and clothed by forcible extraction of time and output from those that do work for a living - with the extraction being laundered by a capitalist intermediary in the usual fashion. If the workers owned the means of production, then they would take Friday off instead of working extra to produce a surplus for UBI people to consume for nothing material in return. In a communist economy everybody has to take their share of the 'socially necessary labour' if they want anything out of the communal pot. You have to use your time working for the benefit of others. That's a guaranteed job, not a guaranteed pension.

dogcomplex 4y ago
It's not necessarily extraction from those that do work for a living if the tax to pay for the UBI is largely a wealth-tax taking the majority from wealthy investors (who, by the conventional wisdom of capitalism, do exactly what you accuse and extract time and output from those that do work for a living for the "hard labor" of managing an index fund). If that tax is balanced to offset the two, well - you've got a fair society (and one likely to eliminate billionaires over time). I estimate that wealth tax price to be around the average cost of living - as any less and those are people who have no choice but to accept whatever poor labor deals are put in front of them, which enables the capitalist to extract more value than the labor is worth. If people have their costs of living covered and freedom to pick and choose to labor or not, then it doesn't matter if your net worth is 10k or 10M, you're going to accept a similar wage for similar work. (well, not entirely - but at least at that point it's about desire for luxuries not hard desperation) A truly Communist economy takes this much further and splits things evenly from the start. Though I'd argue you get there with a very-high wealth tax and UBI. That doesn't necessarily mean the society is producing a lot of goods though - especially if you just uplifted most of your citizenry that were only doing those shitty jobs because they would literally starve otherwise. But to communism's not-credit, there haven't been many great implementations solving the motivation problem yet either. I suspect a gradual UBI/wealth tax combo is going to do a lot better at easing in motivation and crucially - preventing violent backlash from those in power - than any sudden shift to a fully-communist system. Personally, that is.
- neilwilson 4y ago
  It’s always an extraction from the working person. The rich only have money. They don’t have or produce any stuff. To believe otherwise is to fall for the money illusion. The tax should be returned to the worker who has earned it, not redistributed to another person who expects to consume without producing.
  - dogcomplex 4y ago
    Due to the nature of poor people having no economic option except to do labor, the above system would effectively only return the money back to the workers. Anyone with enough wealth accumulated to no longer need to work would be paying more in taxes than they receive by UBI As for whether the entire system of investing materials/capital when a project is risky should be rewarded at all (ostensibly the rich class' job) - mine is a conservative take. It could be rewarded less, certainly (via a wealth tax). Completely removing that mechanism ("money illusion") seems like a recipe for a society where there is little point in taking any risky venture.