UBI is kind of cool but it has some massive flaws. For example: Landlords and groceries can just raise prices to bring the cost of living up and since there are no rent/price controls (because “that would be communism”) we’ll be right back to where we started. What you want is Universal Basic Services. Anything you need to live is free. Literally impossible for anyone to game that system and equally impossible for people to slip through the gaps, but it’s also never going to happen because “that would be communism”
So yeah this is why capitalism has go to, because any attempt at actually making a just and fair society will be dismissed as “being communism”
Landlords and groceries can just raise prices to bring the cost of living up
Sigh. People make this braindead argument every single time this subject comes up. No they can’t. Markets do not work that way. It’s literally just a repackaged argument against minimum wage and it has been thoroughly debunked in that context.
We literally just witnessed this with COVID shutdown. Im not sure why you think people getting handed money will not increase pricing as that is usually how things work.
Not to poopoo your point too much but inflation only happened after covid because a recent war gave justification for greedflation. You can’t really argue money is losing value when CEOs are raking in record profits during an economic downturn.
For the very problems you stated, I’m in favor of UBI. Capital would take some time to adjust to the new system and for a moment, misery would be alleviated for a metric shitload of people. When it’s ripped from our hands by greedy capitalists, it could act as a unifying, radicalizing force and bring us closer to a revolution. There’s a loooot more to it than my few sentences. But a UBI given to everyone with no means testing would be an objectively good thing. And its a bit like Pandora’s box. Once it’s here, you can’t take it away without serious social ramifications. I’ll leave a couple of articles that touch on this because it’s something the left ought to be taking more seriously, however I haven’t had a chance to read the two of them all the way through yet. I’m at work and things just got busy but here ya go one, two
I like the idea of UBI too. I hope it happens and that we transition into a UBS model once its success is shown to the world. That being said it’s important to front that with me not being in support of the neofeudal UBI that silicon valley techbros push for. That would be a disaster.
Hard agree on all points. It’s a bit of a bummer that Andrew yang of all people was the one to start the national conversation about UBI because his whole deal just pollutes the discussion from the jump
It did at least introduce the concept to a lot of people, especially to those who have otherwise never have heard of it.
Kind of like what Bernard Sandman did. He introduced people to a bastardized version of socialism but that still got people talking.