We worry about providing Universal Basic Income because people might stop working, but here's a thought: maybe, just maybe, with a little financial security, people might actually pursue work they truly choose rather than work to just not die. Imagine that world for a moment.
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As someone who is strongly against UBI, and strongly supportive of welfare I can earnestly say people simply not working is not at all the reason I (or most people against UBI in my opinion) are against it.
The reason i am against it is because it causes people more harm than good. People who are in a position where they need assistance need to be given the tools to get out of their situation, and the help to get there needs to be conditional on this (and we should be spending the money that goes with that). Financial assistance should be conditional with mandatory job training or mental health therapy needed to help someone succeed, not just money.
In fact when there are underlying bad habits, as can often be the case, it is possible money can even make a persons condition worse and cause them to sleep farther into poverty.
Another way to describe this depiction of "welfare" is "we should all pay with our taxes to keep the reserve army of labour up to date, so that the employers can keep all wages as low as possible".
In fact, I would be fine with that IFF taxes would be proportional to one's income percentile: you are in the first income percentile (the poorest percentile), you pay 1% of your income in taxes; you are in the last income percentile, you pay 99% of your income in taxes.
In this way, the richest would pay for the upgrade of the reserve army of labour they need.
Anyway, the real problem with #UBI is that, everything else unchanged, it would be completely cancelled by inflation. With a caveat: when the UBI becomes the new zero, governments would be able to blackmail people depending on it.
Incidentally, this is also the obvious reason why many USA billionaires say they want UBI.
> Another way to describe this depiction of "welfare" is "we should all pay with our taxes to keep the reserve army of labour up to date, so that the employers can keep all wages as low as possible".
That would not be a fair or accurate description of how economic systems work. An educated and well trained populace is one most enabled to start new businesses and create new inovation, not just a supply of work force. So the idea that it keeps the workforce uptodate while ignoring the fact that it actually converts (over time) a large portion of the workforce into business owners themselves is a completely inaccurte idea and not at all in line with the reality of the situation.
> In fact, I would be fine with that IFF taxes would be proportional to one's income percentile: you are in the first income percentile (the poorest percentile), you pay 1% of your income in taxes; you are in the last income percentile, you pay 99% of your income in taxes.
Progressive vs flat tax is another issue and I wont address that as I dont want to derail things off on a tangent. But to be clear I am not arguing for flat taxes here so this is largerly a moot point.
> Anyway, the real problem with #UBI is that, everything else unchanged, it would be completely cancelled by inflation.
No it doesnt work that way for two reasons 1) everything else is not unchanged, the act of educating the populace has mass wide spread changes on every aspect of economy for the better 2) it would not cause inflation as it isnt increasing the money supply. If you printed money to cover the UBI then sure, but when it is coming from taxes this is not a correct statement.
> With a caveat: when the UBI becomes the new zero, governments would be able to blackmail people depending on it.
This caveat certainly has some validity to it.
> Incidentally, this is also the obvious reason why many USA billionaires say they want UBI.
Honestly, I doubt you have any idea what billionaires want or what motivated them. And I suspect you have a very twisted/biased view about them that makes it impossible for you to make such statements objectively and accurately. Then again I'd say that about most people.
come on @freemo, turning "mandatory job training or mental health therapy" into "educating the populace" is a very poor attempt at changing your argument.
Nobody can be againg universal education, but you want to condition people survaival to job training, which is way less than education.
Or maybe I misunderstood your words: did you mean that anyone pursuing higher education in any possible field should be financially supported by the collectivity?
It would be great to see univerisities full of poor people studying history, phylosophy, music, math and so on, not only for free but with a decent income.
I totally agree that educating the populace in such way would benefit society in many way, maybe even economically, in the long run.
But if you just meant to condition people survival on "job training", you are really proposing to collectivize the cost of upgrading the reserve army of labour so that, the employers could keep the wage as low as possible.
> turning "mandatory job training or mental health therapy" into "educating the populace" is a very poor attempt at changing your argument.
Dont just quote me out of context. I explained "job training" meant, education, university, trade schools, etc...
How is educating the entire populace with advanced degrees not educating the whole populace.
Uhm... if you actually meant that people studying whatever they decide to study to any degree should earn a decent income that make them independent, then I agree that this is a better alternative to #UBI.
But note: the income should be granted to anyone studying whatever they are interested into, not to people studying "what the market need".
If that's what you meant, I'm sorry for misunderstanding your words (but I also suggest you to be more clear next time: "job training" is a very specific kind education, designed to only teach people how to perform a specific job, not for example how to run a company that could compete in the market or create innovative technologies).
Yet the "who pays?" issue persist: you know that such "Universal Culture & Income" would have a huge economical cost: how do you think it could be payed through taxation?
> Uhm... if you actually meant that people studying whatever they decide to study to any degree should earn a decent income that make them independent, then I agree that this is a better alternative to #UBI.
No not exactly, but not too far off. People should be able to study whatever **marketable** skill they want, but it should be totally up to them which skill it is. Do i think someone should be able to go to school to become a the best bubblegum chewer in the world, no, but they should be able to pick and choose their career between any of the choices that will allow them to provide enough utility to society that they can sustain themselves without welfare in the future.
> But note: the income should be granted to anyone studying whatever they are interested into, not to people studying "what the market need".
No that is non-sensical and literally doesn't solve the problem. The goal is produce people who have something to offer society that is of value to its fellow members. That can represent art, music, and plenty of fields that are all marketable skills. It doesnt mean you can learn how to become the best weed smoker in the world and expect people to pay for it or whatever other silly nonsense you might come up with.
> Or maybe I misunderstood your words: did you mean that anyone pursuing higher education in any possible field should be financially supported by the collectivity?
Almost, all **marketable** subjects (read: subjects with utility where the skill has use to others) should be free and tax payer paid to any level.
> Yet the "who pays?" issue persist: you know that such "Universal Culture & Income" would have a huge economical cost: how do you think it could be payed through taxation?
The same people who pay for everything else, the tax payers. Which is exactly who should be paying to improve society (tax payers being both corporations, and individuals since both pay taxes).
Well, our society needs people who can reason about ethics, for example. We need people who knows history. We need people who can create poetry and art. But capitalist market fear ethics, as it would conflict with profit maximization. It also fears history because it shows that there have been plenty of alternatives to capitalist market. As for poetry and art in general, the greatest artists tend to be poor and misunderstood, and in no way create their masterpiece for the market (that tends to exploit them after their death).
The value of the greatest artists is often really understood decades after their death. So being able to provide value to the society is pretty different from being əble to make society understand and recognise such value.
And the converse is also true: the market pays for all sort of non-sense, that provide no value to the society, From drugs to gamers.
So pursuing only marketable skills as a condition to survival is, again, a way to produce a reserve army if labour to keep wage low.
"Educating the populace" is a better alternative than #UBI if (and only if) the people can earn a living by studying any human field of knowledge. And this does not include weed smoking or any of the strawman you picked, but might include several different fields with very low market demand, such as, say, theorethical phylosophy, history of music, or artic biology or programming in #Oberon or #HolyC.
This because the market do not know what will be valuable for the society.
> Well, our society needs people who can reason about ethics, for example.
If society needs a thing then it has utility, if it has utility then it is marketable. That said wit snot just "does society need some number of these people" as it is about having the correct number of them.
Sure society needs (and will pay for) people who study ethics. It is a marketable skill as long as there are not enough such people, at some point you have too many and its no longer marketable.
Every nobel peace prize winner could be argued is likely an expert on ethics in a marketable position.
> We need people who can create poetry and art. But capitalist market fear ethics, as it would conflict with profit maximization.
All of those are example of things that provide utility to society and are marketable. In fact I explicitly listed these as examples of marketable skills.
People buy poetry books, people buy art. It nis an example of a marketable skill.
> As for poetry and art in general, the greatest artists tend to be poor and misunderstood, and in no way create their masterpiece for the market (that tends to exploit them after their death).
The fact that you think they are good doesnt mean they are good. But if they are truly good then either they dont have marketable skills (for example they suck at art, or dont know enough about business to sell their art, or some other needed skill they lack to make themselves marketable)... or they refuse to work for someone. There are plenty of jobs for artists, in the world , particularly if you are trained.
> The value of the greatest artists is often really understood decades after their death.
Providing some benefit long after everyone is dead isnt helping us now. You want to do things that will be appreciated in 100 years, do that as a hobby. We have enough things we need now to not worry about a what if far intot he future.
Also for every artist that becomes well known after their death there are a million artists which provided little or no value because they were always objectively crappy.
> So pursuing only marketable skills as a condition to survival is, again, a way to produce a reserve army if labour to keep wage low.
You just proved the opposite, literally everything you listed are examples of marketable skills when highly trained and not oversaturated. So umm, no.
> This because the market do not know what will be valuable for the society.
You literally just made the case it does.
@freemo @Shamar @scottsantens How sad it must be to live in a world where the only value of a thing is what you can get someone else to pay for it.
I literally argued for the exact opposite of that. That things have value that arent marketable just dont expect other people to pay for it.
You seem to have a knack for reading something and interpriting it as the exact opposite of what was actually said.
That assumes the fault lies with your own lack of clarity. It is also possible people are so biased they will hear what they want to hear regardless of what you say.
@freemo @Shamar @scottsantens When multiple people have a hard time understanding my words, I think about how to make them clearer.