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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: 1, Troll) by rleigh on Monday October 15 2018, @01:20PM (18 children)
> And how would UBI make humans unwilling to create purpose in their lives? How many hours a week does a guy like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos work? They have the means to never work another moment again. Forever.
> Why do they do it? Because they create purpose and drive themselves forward. Most of us do this, even if we don't have bazillions of dollars.
> It seems to me that not having to worry about things like a roof or basic foodstuffs would *encourage* innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship.
It's a lovely idea in theory. In practice the evidence is completely to the contrary, with welfare dependency being a cycle of despair and ruin for many. I've seen it first hand. It's not called the "welfare trap" for nothing.
The Musk/Bezos example is a poor one. Suppose you were like one of them, with amazing ideas. But with UBI, you might well not have the agency to put those ideas into practice because you're an unemployed layabout with no connections to get a job somewhere you could actually make something of your ideas. I have lots of ideas, but I can't make anything of them alone. Being given the freedom to pursue them is nice, but not necessarily going to be as fulfilling or productive as doing it in the context of a commercial organisation.
Having good ideas and motivation doesn't matter if you don't have the agency to realise it. UBI could end up crushing people because it actively prevents them from pursuing their dreams. The basic income can be a trap, robbing people of the motivation to better themselves and their condition. I often wonder about how many lives have been robbed of their potential due to the welfare state sapping people of the drive to push themselves further. And I think UBI would be even worse than that.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Bobs on Monday October 15 2018, @02:01PM (14 children)
You seem to be missing the point of UBI: a basic income that provides the freedom/opportunity to choose how to spend your time.
Think of the alternative options: the “welfare trap” you spoke of was because welfare is means tested and if you get a job to improve your situation, you start losing all the support - food, housing, income, that has been helping you to get by. With UBI you keep it when you take on additional work - there is no “ trap”. Those who want to work, make art, teach, start a business, whatever, have the opportunity to do so without the risk of being homeless or starving to death.
Minimum wage jobs, can also be a trap because between the work and the commuting and the costs involved you often don’t have opportunity for much of anything else, and typically don’t make enough to get by on.
In a few years, 70%+ of jobs will be done better, faster, cheaper and with higher quality by robots and AI. What sort of meaningful, paid work will the displaced people be able to do? Talk about despair for them. UBI gives them a choice and hope. What is the alternative for them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @02:29PM (13 children)
Where's the money for UBI coming from? So you think you're free to start a business with UBI and the taxes will not be so prohibitive as to have effectively landed everyone in the welfare trap? Then, as always under socialism, the mass starvations will come!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @04:07PM (12 children)
As long as the tax is less than 100% and you continue to receive UBI, you will always be better off for running your business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @04:52PM (10 children)
Yes, business is great under "not real" socialism! [spectator.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @07:16PM (9 children)
The only person suggesting that strawman as a model for the U.S. is you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:23AM (8 children)
Um, no. Someone suggested something really stupid. That tax better be a lot less than 100% or we won't see those businesses.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:42AM (7 children)
It should be a lot less, but my criterion is a measure of the worst case.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:04AM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:29AM (5 children)
Why not? You're still better off for running it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:25PM (4 children)
Because that's not true. If I see ten cents of every dollar my business earns, what's in it for me? Remember one of the key arguments for UBI is that it reduces the risks associated with doing something new. Well, you have to consider the other side too for a non-hobby, the reward. Greatly reducing the reward for starting a business is very similar to increasing the risk. In the above case, by reducing the reward for starting a business by an order of magnitude is similar to increasing the risk by an order of magnitude, once you get to businesses that have profit potential much larger than the UBI.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @03:39PM (3 children)
If that's just not enough for you, don't do it. Someone else will. You can just keep it at hobby level or choose something else. But keep in mind that if you're in that tax bracket, those dimes on the dollar are probably enough to fund a fairly lavish lifestyle and my guess is that you won't want to give it up.
You'll whine and moan to your butler about how "hard" life is and "threaten" to give it all up, but at the end of the day your greed will drive you to show up tomorrow and keep doing it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:22PM (2 children)
Why? High taxes hurt them as much as they hurt me. The sharply reduced reward still remains.
Unless, of course, they don't bother because the reward isn't worth the risk.
Meanwhile in other countries with a much lower tax rate, new businesses will start up which routinely form zero profit subsidiaries in high tax land.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:47PM (1 child)
Khallow is threatening to take his marbles and stomp off in a huff! OH NOES! Whatever will we do?!?
Oh, I know: "BYE BYE! Don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you!"
Hint: At one point, the Beatles were paying 95% in taxes. They didn't quit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:56PM
Yea, right. [reddit.com]
Funny how there's always loopholes when these crazy high tax rates happen. So what appears to have happened here is that the Beatles got burned by these sky high taxes one year, took on competent tax advisors, and then only paid 30% thereafter.
That doesn't quite fit the narrative, does it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:16PM
^ this guy gets it
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday October 15 2018, @03:35PM
Not even a little bit. They are great examples. I used Musk and Bezos as examples for two reasons:
1. They are people pretty much everyone knows. If I'd said Barb Henderson or Zvi Liebmann, you'd have no idea who I was talking about;
2. They have no incentive to work *at all*, given that they have enough resources to support hundreds of people for centuries.
Even though they have the resources to buy new fully furnished houses, complete with cars, clothes, food and pretty much anything they might want, and then throw it all away, every week for the rest of their lives without doing a lick of work, they work hard, because they have dreams, aspirations and purpose that goes far beyond just eating money.
And most people are the same way (well except for the part about buying a new home every week and throwing it away). There are many, many amazingly talented and capable people out there who *could* be innovating, creating and making their communities more prosperous and productive. Instead *they* are caught in a trap. They don't have the means to pursue their dreams and goals, as they need to spend most of their waking hours working just to live paycheck to paycheck.
I pointed out that UBI isn't the only, and may well not be the best way to help the *majority* of working-age people out of their own money trap.
The vast majority who *are* working and, while they make ends meet, they often don't have much or any savings in case they have unexpected expenses like car problems, sick family members, etc. And if they lose their job, they are likely a month or so away from eviction. Sometimes, it doesn't even require you losing your job to be unable to cover the rent.
Have you ever tried to hold down a job when you didn't have any place to shower? I have. It's damn near impossible to be presentable on a regular basis when you're homeless.
As I said, we need to do *something* or this is gonna get real ugly. Then again, maybe that's what you'd like to see. If so, don't be disingenuous about it, have the courage of your convictions and just come right out and say you want to blow up our society.
You don't seem to have a clear understanding about what it's like to be in the vast majority of people in this country.
As to those on public assistance, that's become just a cruel joke on those (a tiny percentage of the population, BTW) who receive it.are *actively* discouraged from seeking work because their skill sets (Don't get me started on the incredible inequality in our school systems) will only allow them to get low paying jobs. Once they do that, they are smacked with a whole host of additional costs (commuting, child care, clothing, etc., etc., etc.) which eats away most (if not all or more) any additional cash flow than that which they get from public assistance.
What's more, as soon as they do this, they are immediately cut off. Gee, let's think about that. If I go out and get a job paying me, say, US$14,000/annum, less taxes. Yes, I am aware that they will get a refund at the end of the year, but that money is still deducted from the ~US$270.00 per week. Call it %20 (or more, if there are state/local income taxes) on weekly basis. Have you tried to feed, clothe and house a family on a couple hundred bucks a week? Don't forget, they now need to commute, which costs money. And any children who aren't in school need to have child care. The cost for day care is often more than they take home.
Even further, as soon as you take that job, you begin to lose various other benefits (this is dependent on where you are) like housing subsidies, food stamps, community outreach, and on and on and on.
tl;dr: You're talking out of your ass, and it smells that way too.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @04:00PM
Welfare fails because of the many strings attached. Show any sign of improving your lot in life and the rug gets pulled out from under you. You must regularly go through a ritual where you must kiss a petty bureaucrat's ass and satisfy them that you are trying and failing to find a suitably menial job. It's a trap because it is well designed to be a trap.
UBI removes the strings and frees the recipient to do something meaningful to themselves and others.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:30AM
The only evidence I'm aware of, where a UBI was tried, resulted in almost everyone still working with the exceptions being teenagers who spent more time getting educated instead of quitting school to help their families and mothers, who spent more time raising their young children.
UBI is not welfare. People are still free to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome [wikipedia.org] in particular Dauphin where the recipients had no strings attached to their guaranteed income. Searching for Dauphin and UBI gives other sources as well.