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Think of it: The government prints more money or perhaps — god forbid — it taxes some corporate profits, then it showers the cash down on the people so they can continue to spend. As a result, more and more capital accumulates at the top. And with that capital comes more power to dictate the terms governing human existence.
UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers.
Meanwhile, UBI also obviates the need for people to consider true alternatives to living lives as passive consumers. Solutions like platform cooperatives, alternative currencies, favor banks, or employee-owned businesses, which actually threaten the status quo under which extractive monopolies have thrived, will seem unnecessary. Why bother signing up for the revolution if our bellies are full? Or just full enough?
Under the guise of compassion, UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers. Once the ability to create or exchange value is stripped from us, all we can do with every consumptive act is deliver more power to people who can finally, without any exaggeration, be called our corporate overlords.
No, income is nothing but a booby prize. If we're going to get a handout, we should demand not an allowance but assets. That's right: an ownership stake.
https://medium.com/s/powertrip/universal-basic-income-is-silicon-valleys-latest-scam-fd3e130b69a0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 15 2018, @09:06AM (16 children)
Allow me to rephrase what I see in your post:
With automation taking over, you don't know how people will be employed in the future. Because you can't see any source of income other than traditional jobs, you believe that there can be no other sources of income than jobs or welfare. Since there are no jobs, we should demand some form of welfare. Apparently, this UBI thing is preferable to other forms of welfare.
As for people getting bored, and doing "something of value" - maybe you can cite statistics - significant statistics - or proles or welfare recipients doing things of value.
Here, I can readily admit that perhaps some of those people who have lived in the projects all of their lives might be doing something of value. Just because I can't see and/or can't recognize the value, doesn't necessarily mean they have no value. But - please - elucidate on that subject. Mostly, what I see in the projects, are "consumers", or pets, or livestock, whose time is used up in the pursuit of drugs, alcohol, and sex. They seem to contribute nothing to society. Those individuals who leave the projects behind often times become very valuable members of society - but what are the statistics? And, what do they DO? Military - basketball - get an education and a job - maybe art or music - reality shows -
I'd like to see some convincing statistics on those who leave welfare behind. The vast majority have as much value as livestock - and many of those have less value than livestock.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Monday October 15 2018, @10:35AM (15 children)
As for people getting bored, and doing "something of value" - maybe you can cite statistics - significant statistics - or proles or welfare recipients doing things of value.
The entire 60's music movement in the UK (British invasion, Beatles, etc, in the USA) was the result of the teens being on the dole*, so they could spend all day listening to rock'n'roll and learning to play the guitar. Some of us learned how to design electronics building amplifiers for rock bands, and went on to design computers.
Others wrote books, and acted in dramas travelled the world, and all sorts of things, so, yes we have seen it on a large scale.
* before computers, benefits were fairly easy to get because it was unrealistic to expect meaningful checks to work, however, the amount you got was pretty minimal, so you would still get a job if you could. - UBI, in effect.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:48AM (6 children)
Exceptions don't prove the the end result which has been multi-generational welfare dependency on sink estates throughout the country. A guitar would cost a weeks wage, how did people on the dole afford that? And most of the electronics skills you mention were picked up during the war and passed on from there.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @04:24PM (3 children)
The entirety of science up to the 20th century came from people who didn't have to work for a living. The engineering came from people who worked but had free time and enough money to tinker.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 19 2018, @06:40PM (2 children)
I can name a dozen pre-20th century mathematicians off the top of my head: Poisson, Euler, Gauss, Fermat, Leibniz, Newton, Riemann, Cauchy, Frobenius, Abel, Fourier, and Hilbert. They still worked for a living, but their work was something relatively conducive like math research, teaching, diplomacy, academic administration, engineer, soldier, etc.
If one actually reads biographies of scientists from this era, one sees a lot of people struggling to get by and do scientific research while simultaneously meeting their own needs.
Meanwhile today, it's easier than ever to be a scientist and thus, scientists are way oversubscribed. The problems today have nothing to do with the vagaries of living and much to do with appearances of doing science being valued more to a lot of parties with funding than the actual science.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 19 2018, @08:02PM (1 child)
Look again. Some like Gauss were not born to money, but he (for example) was on a full ride from the local nobility. None of them were filling out TPS reports in triplicate or waiting tables.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 19 2018, @11:05PM
In other words, he worked for a living, but his living was doing math research and teaching.
That's not what "working for a living" means. Could be a lumberjack too.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday October 15 2018, @06:57PM (1 child)
Used guitars, hand-me-down guitars, borrowed / shared guitars.
Speaking as a formerly very poor rock and roll musician, and one who now does the lending and handing out. I give out studio time, too.
Um... no. The number of people who picked / pick up actually useful electronics skills then and now in the military is really pretty small. Just because you can run a field radio doesn't mean you can build one. Likewise, just because you know how to run a hardened military laptop doesn't mean you can start with a blank sheet and design a microprocessor-based system.
You build such skills by digging in as deep as you can, quite often over your head, wallowing in discovery and accomplishment — and learning from failure. The military has never been about that at all; they make cogs specifically to fit pre-defined places in their machine, and once your useful skill set has been put together, that's what you do. Want to qualify for a step up? They've got a pre-defined path for that, too. Hobbies and personal pursuits of passion, however, always have been about pursuit of passion without much regard for limits or someone else's vision of what you can/should be. That's where most of the creatives find their muses. I certainly did, and it's true of everyone else I've ever known as well. Formal environments typically produce cookie-cutter results. They're certainly useful, but they're different.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @11:44PM
Enlarging, the sound of the rock guitar as we know it is achieved by setting the pre-amp "wrong". The military is not known for encouraging trying things the "wrong" way.
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Monday October 15 2018, @01:23PM
I'm sure it can benefit some individuals. However, I don't think you can generalise the success of a few to something which is of benefit to the whole of society. They are exceptions.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 15 2018, @01:24PM (6 children)
That's interesting - without a welfare system, we wouldn't have had the Beatles. But, that doesn't say much for statistics. Millions on welfare, or the dole, and we have the Beatles to show for it?
I'm going to be cooperative. Let's say that the vast majority of artists have either arisen from the welfare slums, or were pampered children of wealthy parents. People with a lot of leisure, and no real demands on their time. Do those artists justify all the money given away to the rest of the millions with nothing to do?
I still see livestock here. The rancher in Texas may have 100 horses on his property. He keeps them because he works some or most, and the rest are good breeding stock. Out of those 100 horses, he may have a unique horse - a 7-gaited horse, or an especially talented roping horse, or a very fast horse that wins a lot of races. (Personally, I put the most value on a good trail horse, smart enough to keep himself and his rider out of trouble. Many of us who have ridden have a favorite horse that just did the right thing at the right time, and needed no input from the rider.)
Suddenly, there is a horse population explosion. Horses decrease in value, and he can't sell the excess. What does he do with all those horses? Well - he goes out and culls them. The ones he doesn't have a use for, and he can't sell, he *might* try to give away. Those he can't give away are headed to the glue factory. Or, more likely, he'll sell them to a broker who takes them to Mexico for slaughter, and the butcher shops.
As I see it, the Beatles were somewhat unique, and stood out from the herd - so they became pampered pets. The herd from which they came are still expendable livestock.
Here - someone points out that the working class is still part of the livestock, I suppose. But, I'll counter that the working portions of the herd are earning their keep, and are viewed differently from the greater part of the herd. Those horses have value, and may be expected to be "put out to pasture" one day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @02:40PM (5 children)
so you think the purpose and justification of life is work for the ruling class which decides who's worthy?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 15 2018, @03:01PM (4 children)
That's a European concept, I think. Everyone belonged to Royalty, and your purpose was to somehow enrich the Royal Landowner. It seems that we've just adapted the concept, so that in the US, you "belong" to a corporation, so long as you enrich the corporation.
My own view is, you need to give something back to society, if you expect society to support you. If you produce nothing of value, then you deserve nothing of value. You've got to swap, trade, barter, or buy whatever you need in life. The Beatles swapped some songs for a wealthy lifestyle. People who have NOTHING to trade live their lives out in housing projects and ghettos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:31PM (3 children)
That mindset is a failure once society reaches the point of abundance, like the US has now. People want to be useful, that is an inherent trait. UBI would free people to be more productive and do things that have no real profit motive.
The hardest part of such a future that I see is making sure that people get to swap in/out of the actual work force. If all the jobs are taken then some people who want to earn more money will be left out and a clear class system will develop, so there should be some system to maintain the labor market fluidity. Such a system would allow the pace of life to slow waaay down such that trains might become more popular for travel. This would clean up the skies with reduced flights as people are not rushed to make the best use of 10 measly vacation days.
Anyway, the concept is solid but the potential downfalls are many. "Meritocracy" type people such as yourself who want to enforce workaday/eataday will be the source of the problems because deep down you're selfish. It is reasonable to not want to work and provide for others with no help at all, but that is not really the situation here. In this day and age we ALL get help from others, our advanced society with its various creature comforts are 100% dependent on the whole. The hardest working people are still getting something for nothing by getting to live in modern society.
Not to mention the best paid in our society are getting a massively disproportionate slice of the money-pie yet you aren't going all vigilante about that injustice. They are literally thieves, and I know you don't like the wealth disparity but that is a much worse reality we have now.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:50AM (2 children)
Sorry, the concept has not been demonstrated to be "solid". All I've seen is so much wishful thinking.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:45AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome [wikipedia.org]. People on UBI keep working generally. If someone gave you a thousand a month, would you quit work, or perhaps just cut back a bit?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:09PM
Interesting question. I think that if you were to mail me a check every month for a thousand dollars, I wouldn't quite, or cut back. I would almost definitely use that extra thousand to purchase and/or do things that I have put off, for lack of "disposable" income. That is, there are things I'd really like to have, that I could probably afford, if I were willing to take out a loan, or cash in on something else. But, I'm not willing to do either, so I do without. A thousand a month extra money? Hell yeah, I'd have a new - or almost new - motorcycle in very short order. I could put up new fence, soon after the new motorcycle. (We're talking about a mile of fence, and a half dozen truck/tractor main gates, and another half dozen man gates here, which means a nice chunk of change.) I could add a couple of outbuildings, and tear down the old rotten ones.
Of course, being married, the wife would probably have something to say about how I would spend that money. But, definitely a new motorcycle! We wouldn't even discuss that - I'd just go get the bike!