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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: 2) by jmorris on Monday October 15 2018, @05:20PM (7 children)
Had you actually read Marx you would realize you are making the same mistake he did. He saw the rapid changes happening in England during the Industrial Revolution and made a straight line projection from that present into the future. Always a bad idea. He assumed that machines were replacing the work of workers at a rapid rate, soon only a few workers with a lot of machines would produce everything and most would be idle, thus redistribution of income only answer. Silicon Valley and you think computers are rapidly replacing workers, soon only a tech elite will be maintaining the robots and everyone else will be idle, thus redistribution is the answer.
Nope. Economics is people, people are thus always of value. Instead of reading Marx, read Mises [mises.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @07:14PM (6 children)
Then why is it that whenever the subject of raising minimum wage to a lavel that provides a living wage, the right keeps popping up and saying "they're not worth minimum wage"?
Pick one, Senator. Either they are and they're being ripped off en-masse, or they're not and you're wrong about automation.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday October 15 2018, @07:55PM (4 children)
You are committing yet another logical fallacy here. You assume that if a person is ever paid below some arbitrary "minimum" wage they are worthless people who will never earn enough to support themselves. Look at reality and see it is your very minimum wage laws that make that more true than you want to admit, by denying people entry to the labor market.
Students, the retired, people with low skills, lots of people is areas of the country with lower cost of living, all would be perfectly willing to work for wages below the federally mandated minimum wage but are forbidden and either suffer the loss of income, work off the books or go on government assistance and stay there. If you allow people to work, yes even at crappy low paying jobs, you allow them to learn important skills, to participate in society, to have a feeling of self worth. Even if they aren't earning what you think is a "living wage" (whatever that term is, notice it is always left poorly defined) at the moment, even if they need to take in a roomie or are still living at home. And yes, even if they still qualify for government assistance, we should make sure those programs always encourage work. Show me the graven tablet saying that no man should bestir himself to labor unless it pay enough to fully support himself, a spouse and 2.1 children. Perhaps instead tell young people to work themselves up the value chain a bit before marrying and having children?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @08:48PM (3 children)
I didn't commit a first fallacy here. And nice dodging of the question.
People are forbidden to work at below the minimum wage because if they do, they end up depending on subsidies in order to continue living. Effectively, their payroll ends up socialized. Surely your argument isn't we don't need socialism because socialism works fine?
My original post stands, choose one, Senator. Try to stay on target.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday October 15 2018, @09:09PM (2 children)
Nah brah, you clearly ain't smart enough for this ride and everyone else has moved onto another thread.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @10:10PM
Classic fail on your part, HAND.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:49PM
Says everyone to you all the time, but you expect us to take YOU seriously? lawwwwl brah, git gud
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:13AM
Why is it you never care about the cost of living? People can be of value and yet still not meet your inflated expectations of what a living wage (and thus, minimum wage) is.