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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) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:07PM (4 children)
And expedites the clean up of the mess via bankruptcy when that happens plus a number of other services. But that's not ownership or decision-making, both which government is notoriously bad at, both due to lack of expertise and due to enormous conflict of interest. For example, during the US federal government-directly takeover of the General Motors bankruptcy, the government lost [reuters.com] somewhere around $12 billion on the deal, but it worked great for the United Automobile Workers (and allies who were supporters of the then Obama administration) who did great by the takeover in their favor.
In other words, there was a profound amount of corruption and bad choices made when politics mixed with the business world. That is typical for government interference in business affairs.
My view is that we have centuries of history indicating that mixing government and business is a really bad idea. We should instead have a separation of business and state similar to how it's done with religions.
Instead, this increased entanglement just allows the usual suspects (on both business and government sides) even more ways to exploit the situation for profit. This scheme will never benefit "the People", but the usual well-connected people. Why make the problem worse?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:25PM (3 children)
Nowhere did I suggest government ownership - just a government-managed trust, through which individual citizens can assert *their* ownership. But hey, we could leave that out and let every corporation manage their per-citizen shareholding directly.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:03PM (2 children)
And you just suggested it again. A government-managed trust is government ownership. The various interested parties who aren't "individual citizens" can work with that.
Just like now? Works as far as I'm concerned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:00PM (1 child)
>Just like now
No - you missed the part where the *entire citizenry* is a major stakeholder. Right now the poorset 50% of the population own no stock, because they have no capital to invest. While upwards of 80% of stock is owned by the richest 10%, and the remainder is mostly owned indirectly through various retirement plans and other such indirect investment tools, which are themselves mostly managed by corporations with a similar ownership profile.
So, right now the rich call all the corporate shots, and take home all the money, while the rest of the population is left out, except for paying all the social costs of such a system.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:02PM
I'm not missing a thing. They'll still own nothing afterward. It'll be a government trust that owns.
Come on. What social costs? Of course, the rich should call the corporate shots. They're the ones with skin in the game. I have not even the least bit of a problem leaving the vast majority of humanity, US citizens, or whatever, out of the loop. They don't know anything about the business. And they have no business with the business.