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Universal Basic Income Is Silicon Valley’s Latest Scam

posted by martyb on Monday October 15 2018, @05:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the perpetual-motion dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 15 2018, @02:00PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 15 2018, @02:00PM (#749027) Journal

    As productivity and automation continue to improve the only viable alternative to the UBI is mandatory busywork.

    Let us note this didn't happen in the past. As productivity and automation (really the same thing) improved, the value of peoples' labor increased and became more in demand.

    There's only so much you can do with cutting back on the number of hours that people are allowed to work in a given month and not everybody will be suited for the sort of jobs that exist in the future.

    I have a solution to that. Don't cut back. Limiting the hours that people can work, makes them less valuable (more overhead per hour worked).

    But, people get bored and will likely engage in something of value eventually, even if it's not something that has monetary value.

    Unless, of course, they no longer learn the skills to do that. One of the things forgotten is that work is a great place to learn a variety of skills that schools and education won't or can't teach you such as reliability and competence, leading people, and just getting stuff done.