5 ms·

As long as the owner class can leverage, "Hey, that {out group} is sitting around doing nothing and getting free money!" we'll never have anything close to UBI

As long as the owner class can leverage, "Hey, that {out group} is sitting around doing nothing and getting free money!" we'll never have anything close to UBI imo.

tty456 8mo ago
Such is the republican lizard brain these days.
gruez 8mo ago
Seems pretty easy to work around with "UBI for citizens" only. There's not much pushback for social security, for instance, even if minorities get it.
- Arainach 8mo ago
  There's been enormous pushback, pushes for privatizing (ruining) it, underfunding it from Congress, an absolute refusal to remove the criminally low income cap on contributions, etc.
  - zrail 8mo ago
    One could make the argument that the modern Republican Party has in fact largely been shaped by this pushback.
- hinkley 8mo ago
  I still like the idea of clawing back mineral and water rights and paying for basic services out of the money payed by industry for the right to dirty our air and water. As a citizen you're entitled to compensation for the smoke you're breathing. People talk about how socially progressive Scandinavia is but they have a shitload of petroleum resources and that money goes into social programs.
  - throw-qqqqq 8mo ago
    > People talk about how socially progressive Scandinavia is but they have a shitload of petroleum resources and that money goes into social programs Of all the Scandinavian countries, only Norway has any oil resources of significance. The Scandinavian welfare model is primarily tax-funded.
    - hinkley 8mo ago
      My quick look at Swedish exports shows that the largest export is finished equipment at 14%, fuel exports at 7.1, 4.8% wood and paper, 3.6% iron and steel, of which I'm sure a lot of that equipment is made. 3.4% plastics, which is just oil in another form. It looks like you're right and their oil exports are all import/export rather than domestic, but that's still a good bit of mineral wealth.
      - throw-qqqqq 8mo ago
        Yes Sweden has non-trivial mineral resources, but nothing like e.g. China, Russia or Australia though. The Scandinavian social programs are funded by high taxation. It is mostly a result of political prioritization, and not a windfall of natural resources.
  - ryandrake 8mo ago
    I'd love to make companies pay for their products' entire lifecycle, including disposal and cleanup. It's not right that a company can manufacture future-trash, sell it, and then absolve itself of the negative externality when the customer throws the product away and off it goes into a landfill. If a company's process produces waste, it should bear the entire cost of leaving the environment the way they found it rather than just pumping the waste into it. If a company's products are not reused, it should bear the cost of taking the used product back and restoring the world to the way it was before the product was built.
    - everett_w 8mo ago
      this reminds me of retropunk and the hundred rabbits
- shigawire 8mo ago
  >There's not much pushback for social security, for instance, even if minorities get it. The racist moral panic over "welfare queens" seems to be a counter example.
  - tshaddox 8mo ago
    And the same person who posts about that on Facebook will the next day post “keep your government hands off my social security check.”
- whattheheckheck 8mo ago
  And why do citizens get it? USA killed a lot of the world for their wealth and kneecapped anyone who didn't play along
- Der_Einzige 8mo ago
  A lot of conservatives want to retroactively throw off non whites from citizenship because they think birthrate citizenship is disgusting. Expect a real movement to reduce the number of citizens in this country. Specifically, if you can’t trace your lineage to a founding father (including for kids of Geman or iish immigrants), than they want you disenfranchised. Heritage Americans vs “hyphenated Americans” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American
- spicymaki 8mo ago
  Minorities don’t just get social security. People don’t get social security if they don’t work or don’t have a spouse who worked. They pay in to the system via payroll taxes. With UBI who is going to pay into that? UBI just seems like a pipe dream.
  - int_19h 8mo ago
    With UBI, everyone is going to pay into that via taxes. It's not any different from other forms of welfare.
flanked-evergl 8mo ago
[flagged]
- zrail 8mo ago
  (Citation needed)
- atlintots 8mo ago
  You can't afford an apartment because the ownership class is working very hard to keep housing prices high while paying you as little as possible for the two decades you have been working. Not because some disabled person elsewhere is struggling to get by on government loans and welfare.
  - socalgal2 8mo ago
    The ownership class is doing no such thing. Zoning, regulation, nimby-ism are what keep prices high.
    - matwood 8mo ago
      > Zoning, regulation, nimby-ism And who exactly do you think controls these items?
      - flanked-evergl 8mo ago
        [flagged]
    - allannienhuis 8mo ago
      who do you think is responsible for all of those things, if not the ownership class?
  - flanked-evergl 8mo ago
    The people keeping housing prices high are the leftist that push regulations that make it impossible to build while importing immigrants who disproportionately use welfare and get starter loans which they then use to push up housing prices without contributing anything to the economy. If this is the "ownership class" I guess stop voting for leftist. But nobody does, they just keep doing it, and housing becomes even more unaffordable. The right wing here are the only people where I live with an actual viable plan for helping working people, even low class working people. The left makes deliberate choices that everyone knows will make things worse for lower class working people.
fragmede 8mo ago
[flagged]
- lbreakjai 8mo ago
  I don't think the communism club would disagree with you. Historically, labour was a right _and_ an obligation. The floor being three square meals and a roof would be a vast improvement compared to now.
- zthrowaway 8mo ago
  Historically speaking, you don’t get kicked out of the communist club, they just kill you.
- allannienhuis 8mo ago
  > I ain't giving people something for nothing but I suspect you do, or would do that for your children or immediate family. I'm just some dude on the internet, so my opinions are worth exactly what you're paying for them (nothing). But when I try to understand this type of thinking, this is what I come up with: In the old days of scarce resources (vast majority of civilization), children were expected to 'repay' their elders for the care they received by taking care of them in their old age. And the competition for resources made this idea of keeping those resources for your family only important for survival. But with the resources available today, the dynamics a very different. Currently only about 25% of total employment is in agriculture, worldwide. In the rich countries this is very significantly less. Canada is 1%, USA is 2% [worldbank] But we're living with the cultural baggage of generations of scarcity and tribalism, which still shape our policy in a time of incredible resources provided by technology. So instead of more sharing, we choose higher standard of living for ourselves. I know it will take time to change this culturally - generations - but I'm still disappointed it's not happening faster. [worldbank]:https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS
  - phil21 8mo ago
    I think it's hard for certain people with certain backgrounds to understand. What I see as someone who grew up in a very working class family surrounded by those on benefits: I see the janitor who busts their ass day in and day out to provide for their families totally lost in these conversations. They are expected to take money out of their check - doing a very difficult, thankless, and not all that well paying job - to even today help pay for a whole lot of people who are incredibly more privileged. I know quite a number of people who have college degrees but experienced "failure to launch" who see themselves as too good to go work in a kitchen, as a janitor, or what have you - but are quite happy to accept various form of public benefits due to their part time cushy employment. I cannot square that circle. Having someone work themselves to a bone with no real hopes of retirement, so you can have other people live a much easier life than they are. If you ask those taking said benefits who are working part time in a arts field or whatever, they will of course state that they are not the problem and "rich people" should pay more in taxes so the janitor also doesn't have to work. But now who is cleaning toilets or taking out trash? At some point the work has to be done and you run out of rich people to tax for wealth redistribution. Considering how widespread this "condition" seems to be in my human experience, I cannot see a widescale implementation of "to each of their abilities, to each their need" ever working out simply due to how selfish humans appear to be. I love the idea - and I have often dream of starting my own commune of sorts of well-curated individuals who all have roles to play, but I just can't see it working out either in reality or in scale. The only reason such a limited scale commune might work is that you could rule with an iron fist and vote people off the island who start to take advantage of others and no longer pull their own weight. I am quite convinced that if you implemented UBI or other means for the average person to never work you'd simply get a whole lot of people doing effectively nothing, if not outright destructive (for society) things with their time.

As long as the owner class can leverage, "Hey, that {out group} is sitting around doing nothing and getting free money!" we'll never have anything close to UBI imo.

tty456 8mo ago

Such is the republican lizard brain these days.

gruez 8mo ago

Seems pretty easy to work around with "UBI for citizens" only. There's not much pushback for social security, for instance, even if minorities get it.

Arainach 8mo ago
There's been enormous pushback, pushes for privatizing (ruining) it, underfunding it from Congress, an absolute refusal to remove the criminally low income cap on contributions, etc.
- zrail 8mo ago
  One could make the argument that the modern Republican Party has in fact largely been shaped by this pushback.
hinkley 8mo ago
I still like the idea of clawing back mineral and water rights and paying for basic services out of the money payed by industry for the right to dirty our air and water. As a citizen you're entitled to compensation for the smoke you're breathing. People talk about how socially progressive Scandinavia is but they have a shitload of petroleum resources and that money goes into social programs.
- throw-qqqqq 8mo ago
  > People talk about how socially progressive Scandinavia is but they have a shitload of petroleum resources and that money goes into social programs Of all the Scandinavian countries, only Norway has any oil resources of significance. The Scandinavian welfare model is primarily tax-funded.
  - hinkley 8mo ago
    My quick look at Swedish exports shows that the largest export is finished equipment at 14%, fuel exports at 7.1, 4.8% wood and paper, 3.6% iron and steel, of which I'm sure a lot of that equipment is made. 3.4% plastics, which is just oil in another form. It looks like you're right and their oil exports are all import/export rather than domestic, but that's still a good bit of mineral wealth.
    - throw-qqqqq 8mo ago
      Yes Sweden has non-trivial mineral resources, but nothing like e.g. China, Russia or Australia though. The Scandinavian social programs are funded by high taxation. It is mostly a result of political prioritization, and not a windfall of natural resources.
- ryandrake 8mo ago
  I'd love to make companies pay for their products' entire lifecycle, including disposal and cleanup. It's not right that a company can manufacture future-trash, sell it, and then absolve itself of the negative externality when the customer throws the product away and off it goes into a landfill. If a company's process produces waste, it should bear the entire cost of leaving the environment the way they found it rather than just pumping the waste into it. If a company's products are not reused, it should bear the cost of taking the used product back and restoring the world to the way it was before the product was built.
  - everett_w 8mo ago
    this reminds me of retropunk and the hundred rabbits
shigawire 8mo ago
>There's not much pushback for social security, for instance, even if minorities get it. The racist moral panic over "welfare queens" seems to be a counter example.
- tshaddox 8mo ago
  And the same person who posts about that on Facebook will the next day post “keep your government hands off my social security check.”
whattheheckheck 8mo ago
And why do citizens get it? USA killed a lot of the world for their wealth and kneecapped anyone who didn't play along
Der_Einzige 8mo ago
A lot of conservatives want to retroactively throw off non whites from citizenship because they think birthrate citizenship is disgusting. Expect a real movement to reduce the number of citizens in this country. Specifically, if you can’t trace your lineage to a founding father (including for kids of Geman or iish immigrants), than they want you disenfranchised. Heritage Americans vs “hyphenated Americans” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American
spicymaki 8mo ago
Minorities don’t just get social security. People don’t get social security if they don’t work or don’t have a spouse who worked. They pay in to the system via payroll taxes. With UBI who is going to pay into that? UBI just seems like a pipe dream.
- int_19h 8mo ago
  With UBI, everyone is going to pay into that via taxes. It's not any different from other forms of welfare.

flanked-evergl 8mo ago

[flagged]

zrail 8mo ago
(Citation needed)
atlintots 8mo ago
You can't afford an apartment because the ownership class is working very hard to keep housing prices high while paying you as little as possible for the two decades you have been working. Not because some disabled person elsewhere is struggling to get by on government loans and welfare.
- socalgal2 8mo ago
  The ownership class is doing no such thing. Zoning, regulation, nimby-ism are what keep prices high.
  - matwood 8mo ago
    > Zoning, regulation, nimby-ism And who exactly do you think controls these items?
    - flanked-evergl 8mo ago
      [flagged]
  - allannienhuis 8mo ago
    who do you think is responsible for all of those things, if not the ownership class?
- flanked-evergl 8mo ago
  The people keeping housing prices high are the leftist that push regulations that make it impossible to build while importing immigrants who disproportionately use welfare and get starter loans which they then use to push up housing prices without contributing anything to the economy. If this is the "ownership class" I guess stop voting for leftist. But nobody does, they just keep doing it, and housing becomes even more unaffordable. The right wing here are the only people where I live with an actual viable plan for helping working people, even low class working people. The left makes deliberate choices that everyone knows will make things worse for lower class working people.

fragmede 8mo ago

[flagged]

lbreakjai 8mo ago
I don't think the communism club would disagree with you. Historically, labour was a right _and_ an obligation. The floor being three square meals and a roof would be a vast improvement compared to now.
zthrowaway 8mo ago
Historically speaking, you don’t get kicked out of the communist club, they just kill you.
allannienhuis 8mo ago
> I ain't giving people something for nothing but I suspect you do, or would do that for your children or immediate family. I'm just some dude on the internet, so my opinions are worth exactly what you're paying for them (nothing). But when I try to understand this type of thinking, this is what I come up with: In the old days of scarce resources (vast majority of civilization), children were expected to 'repay' their elders for the care they received by taking care of them in their old age. And the competition for resources made this idea of keeping those resources for your family only important for survival. But with the resources available today, the dynamics a very different. Currently only about 25% of total employment is in agriculture, worldwide. In the rich countries this is very significantly less. Canada is 1%, USA is 2% [worldbank] But we're living with the cultural baggage of generations of scarcity and tribalism, which still shape our policy in a time of incredible resources provided by technology. So instead of more sharing, we choose higher standard of living for ourselves. I know it will take time to change this culturally - generations - but I'm still disappointed it's not happening faster. [worldbank]:https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS
- phil21 8mo ago
  I think it's hard for certain people with certain backgrounds to understand. What I see as someone who grew up in a very working class family surrounded by those on benefits: I see the janitor who busts their ass day in and day out to provide for their families totally lost in these conversations. They are expected to take money out of their check - doing a very difficult, thankless, and not all that well paying job - to even today help pay for a whole lot of people who are incredibly more privileged. I know quite a number of people who have college degrees but experienced "failure to launch" who see themselves as too good to go work in a kitchen, as a janitor, or what have you - but are quite happy to accept various form of public benefits due to their part time cushy employment. I cannot square that circle. Having someone work themselves to a bone with no real hopes of retirement, so you can have other people live a much easier life than they are. If you ask those taking said benefits who are working part time in a arts field or whatever, they will of course state that they are not the problem and "rich people" should pay more in taxes so the janitor also doesn't have to work. But now who is cleaning toilets or taking out trash? At some point the work has to be done and you run out of rich people to tax for wealth redistribution. Considering how widespread this "condition" seems to be in my human experience, I cannot see a widescale implementation of "to each of their abilities, to each their need" ever working out simply due to how selfish humans appear to be. I love the idea - and I have often dream of starting my own commune of sorts of well-curated individuals who all have roles to play, but I just can't see it working out either in reality or in scale. The only reason such a limited scale commune might work is that you could rule with an iron fist and vote people off the island who start to take advantage of others and no longer pull their own weight. I am quite convinced that if you implemented UBI or other means for the average person to never work you'd simply get a whole lot of people doing effectively nothing, if not outright destructive (for society) things with their time.