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What does any of this have to do with Bobby Hill being on Mars in Watchmen?
Funny how communist countries have the worst track record of famines killing millions.
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Are you braindead? Millions are starving under capitalism right now.
Both most famous Socialist Countries had their last famines during collectivization and haven’t had any other famines since, outside wartime.
Do you legitimately think crops have a mystical quality to them that causes them to die if Workers own them?
Meanwhile the billions starving under capitalism because it’s cheaper to let people starve than ship food, even a few miles to a food bank:
What does that have to do with the post?
Learn about the Irish Potato Famine, the numerous famines under the British Raj in India. Count the millions who died under them, and try to resolve for your own understanding how they were caused by countries you are characterizing as communist.
As far as I can tell, “World Food Program” is short for “World Food Program USA”. These numbers are not surprising based upon that fact.
And donating money to a food charity is not the same as socializing food and preventing people from starving by just directly feeding them all
The American idea of socialism is having to beg strangers to pay their medical bills on GoFundMe.
Yeah, that’s not socialism. That’s the Right’s wet dream.
So all this insulting me in your other post isn’t because you actually want UBI, but because you think it’s the only thing Americans are stupid enough to vote for?
Since I’m trying to go about this educated, let’s make sure. We’re in agreement that UBI is objectively worse than universal welfare, right? So we’re just talking about whether UBI is the best conservative shit that uneducated Americans are willing to buy?
I’d be willing to buy that. But I still need to know how to resolve the issue of impoverished leftists being made poorer. I’m assuming the plan you’re in love with (or just don’t hate) isn’t Yang’s stupid plan. So what’s YOUR plan? Would you make it work without gutting welfare?
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What is it with UBI fans being so ad-hominem focused against the Left? I’m literally asking people to give me reasons to consider UBI and with my complaints, and all people do is treat me like I’m a moron.
Is it that there ISN’T anything substantive, and it’s just a blind dream that someday someone will come up with a UBI that works?
Our discussion has ended, and I’m hoping the mods take my reports seriously.
The left is against the left? You ask questions but ignore answers. You have provided nothing substantial, if self awareness was a disease you’d be the healthiest person alive.
There have been some pretty extensive studies that indicate that when you give poor people money, they become less poor. When you give poor people enough money to live on, they stop being poor. It’s a radical concept, but it’s also the truth.
Yeah UBI would solve this. This might be a criticism of contemporary capitalism, but it isn’t a critique of capitalism more broadly because in principle, capitalism can have a UBI.
More fruitful anti-capitalist critiques emphasize workplace authoritarianism, the employer’s appropriation of the whole product of a firm, monopoly power associated with private ownership especially of land and natural resources, and inability to effectively allocate resources towards public goods
A strike can last much longer if workers are not worried about their bread and roof.
Even without organization, a secure worker can bargain harder for higher wages and better conditions.
Aaaaand there it is, the reason they fight so hard to keep you from that security.
Nonviolence won’t solve this.
I hope that the worst kinds of conflict prove avoidable, but historically, there is always someone who fires the first shots.
The Haymarket affair illustrates the matter quite well.
Rights are won with blood, not money; those with money need no rights, and those who need rights have no money.
Good news is that a UBI doesn’t provide enough for most people to keep striking.
What would really kill them if if that money were focused on unemployment. Actually incentivize people to not work (permanently if they want) so they have free automatic leverage. You wouldn’t mean minimum wage anymore because companies would be begging you to work.
I prefer “plans for all” in most things, but I actually think housing+food+healthcare for all but Basic Income for unemployed only would be ideal.
Imagine if one day every minimum-wage worker woke up and was told they’d make $30k/yr by putting in their resignation. Bet you workplace quality would skyrocket and companies would start offering living wages yesterday.
Course, that’s why that won’t happen either, I guess.
In principle, and even in it’s intended general practical application, I agree with you.
But in America, I can see both parties getting on board with a UBI, only because they’ll use it to gut all other social welfare programs.
Need healthcare? UBI
Hungry? UBI
UBI can’t pay for both at once? Tough shit. We abolished EBT and Medicare to pay for UBI.
All must be won by struggle. Elites never surrender privilege only by being asked.
EBT is a flat 200 a month at most and the ongoing application process is humiliating Kafkaesque bullshit I wouldn’t wish on anyone after experiencing it, so I think it would work just fine to shut it down and fold it into a UBI, would be nice and simple and without complications. Health insurance on the other hand, cost varies wildly by circumstance but is generally more expensive, and because of incentives, price negotiations, all the bullshit involved with the system would be way more efficient and cost effective to have a universal healthcare program instead of giving out money to buy into a private insurance industry.
Fortunately, this seems to be recognized in most serious discussions about UBI. Almost everyone quickly acknowledges that the idea of replacing healthcare programs in particular with UBI is stupid. The UBI proposals I’ve seen that got any attention were explicit that it does not replace those. I don’t think it’s realistic they would actually try to replace Medicare with UBI.
SNAP benefit in my state can easily exceed $1000/mo for a single mother. Nobody has a UBI plan that pays for children (at least full). Housing subsidies in my state average around $750/mo. We’re nearing twice what a typical UBI plan gets you. And that’s the stable stuff. If UBI is replacing welfare, some people are either screwed or have to opt out, while still being on the hook for paying for it in their taxes.
The problem isn’t just about healthcare, unfortunately. UBI has many fatal flaws unless you put it on top of universal-life (housing, groceries, necessities, health). But once you have all those other things for free, there are valid arguments that society has paid at least part of its due to you. So sure, a $100-200/mo UBI so everyone can afford some luxury. I’d be into that.
The core issue, btw, is that cost of living is inconsistent. In some areas, $12,000 is Middle Class. In others, $48,000 is “living wage”. So under a UBI, some poor people get rich, sure, but some poor people get poorer.
Nobody has a UBI plan that pays for children (at least full)
The partial ones are all more than SNAP benefits for a single child.
Housing subsidies in my state average around $750/mo.
Who is getting a free 750 for rent? I’ve never heard of anyone getting a deal like that, I sure never got government assistance with rent, I assume whatever that’s for is hard to qualify for, and there are many many people who need/deserve that kind of help but won’t get it. One of the biggest issues with any government benefits program is that, if you know the people who need it most and what they’re capable of, and know what it takes to go through the process, it’s clear they’re never getting it. The system is designed to keep them out.
On the other hand, housing subsidies in particular could synergize very well with UBI, because the biggest mandatory expense for most people is housing, and anything incentivizing the creation of new housing will bring costs down, thus decreasing the necessary amount to allow people to live off it. So it would work better to have those kinds of programs in tandem instead of replacing them, although I would also like a direct focus on new construction and crashing the housing market.
The core issue, btw, is that cost of living is inconsistent. In some areas, $12,000 is Middle Class. In others, $48,000 is “living wage”. So under a UBI, some poor people get rich, sure, but some poor people get poorer.
Unfortunately this one is a pretty tricky issue, because any regionally targeted benefits induce market distortions. It is impossible for everyone who would like to live in NYC for example to be free to live in NYC, access is gated by money currently, and must be gated by something due to the impossibility of fitting enough people to satisfy demand. Giving everyone the ability to live most places regardless of income is itself a massively good thing, even if it doesn’t enable everyone to be in their preferred location (which currently the vast majority can’t anyway, people get priced out of regions constantly). Ultimately I don’t buy the idea that there’s a significant population of the poor that would be getting poorer, I think the majority of people now struggling financially are not really getting much help outside of healthcare.
The partial ones are all more than SNAP benefits for a single child.
Except not really. I have a friend who used to work in SNAP. I picked a lot of random “anonymous” family samples and a surprisingly large number of them would be forced to opt out of Yang’s UBI. That’s actually what got from from all-in on UBI to “show me one that works”.
Who is getting a free 750 for rent?
For eligible families, Massachusetts Section 8 housing subsidizes 100% of the difference between 30% adjusted family income and the FMR of the household. The highest FMR in Massachusetts is $3,608 (Suffolk County 4BR… probably need 3 kids to qualify). If you make $48,000/yr in Suffolk County that means you are eligible for approximately $2,600 in Section 8 rent assistance.
Note, Section 8 makes an apartment 100% means-priced, so anyone can move in to any apartment in the state so long as it’s section 8 approved and their income is under the somewhat generous thresholds. Here’s a summary.
And the thing is, while that’s the highest, numbers at or above $1000 are typical Section 8 figures. There are a lot of cons to Section 8, but for those who utilize it, it is always going to blow Yang’s UBI out of the water. Which means if declining all welfare is a requirement to accept UBI, nearly 100% of poor people in Massachusetts would find themselves opting out of the UBI. But most of them would still be taxed for it.
hard to qualify for, and there are many many people who need/deserve that kind of help but won’t get it
Not really. But it’s hard to qualify landlords for. It’s one of those rare situations where landlords have to prove they’re a viable residence, and many don’t have any interest in Section 8 because they’ve been burned by the increased risk of renters damaging things. But there’s always available rentals.
EDIT: To clarify, it’s still means-tested with red-tape. I am a strong advocate to remove all means-testing and the stigma around welfare, to grow it to a QOL baseline instead of a safety net. Importantly, even without means-testing it has certain advantages like guaranteeing apartment quality and holding landlords to task.
Unfortunately this one is a pretty tricky issue, because any regionally targeted benefits induce market distortions
Exactly. This is why I’m a huge fan of regionally independent benefits, like classic-EBT subsidized food. It can get complicated, but it can cut across the country and prevent someone from getting rich by living in Mississippi while renting a closet in NYC. Something like Section 8 would do a great job of this if it wasn’t means-tested because then anyone would be able to afford to live anywhere they chose. Obviously rich people in Martha’s Vineyard wouldn’t like that.
I use that reference because there IS Section 8 housing available on the Vineyard, and the rich people aren’t dying over it :)
Ultimately I don’t buy the idea that there’s a significant population of the poor that would be getting poorer
Fair enough that you can feel how you want. You probably don’t live on one of the many areas where the math is so clearly one-sided it’s depressing. $12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US… But those areas happen to have the highest homelessness rates in the country.
$12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US
I’ve had income less than that most my life so yeah, idk, it seems like a lot to me.
But there’s always available rentals.
Is that really true? So if you’re poor you can basically live in Massachusetts for free? Has to be some catch. So many desperate people around who would want that. And if the answer is that most of them just don’t know about it, that not-knowing must be a part of how it’s able to be sustained.
Ultimately for me the whole issue is about freedom. If someone is trapped in a job or relationship they don’t want, finances shouldn’t be any barrier to saying no. Not understanding how welfare systems work, not being willing to subject yourself to the process or being too ashamed or whatever, should not be a barrier to getting help. People shouldn’t have to be paranoid about anything that might make them more money because they’re going to have to go through a lot of paperwork as a result and maybe end up worse off. It shouldn’t be possible to use someone’s struggle to survive as leverage to make them work.
This is what scares me about UBI. Yang’s plan was going to hurt (or just not benefit) a lot of families in New York, Massachusetts, California, and other net-producing locations. The list of those least-benefitting from a UBI matches the list of areas with the highest poverty and homelessness rate. That, to me, is unacceptable.
The moment you have a UBI plan that poor has to contribute to and then opt out of, you just have another system that’s screwing the poor.
Even a UBI specifically for food- food stamps for all- would make a massive change and improve millions of lives.
This could have negative effects similar to what has been seen in communist countries where vendor lock-in leads to weakened quality control if not every company can accept those food vouchers.
It’s good to allow people freedom of choice.
UBI would be at its best as a static lump sum of money.
Every supermarket already accepts food stamps. Expanding the program wouldn’t change that.
How about any small business? If the process of being able to accept food stamps has bureaucracy, you’ll end up locking out small companies unable to meet requirements or who cannot afford it.
Food stamps at scale could also lead to stores opting for the cheapest alternatives. Salaries will ultimately scale down through supply and demand to a point where people will have less money, but now they’ll have stamps. This in turn can hurt innovation and competition as newer products tend to cost more and people will need make stamps suffice for daily food.
A money-based UBI is safer as you’ll ultimately see smaller salaries, but the amount of money you’ll have per month will remain static. This gives freedom of choice. Not to mention people also need homes, clothing and other daily goods in exchange for money.
Any business selling food can accept food stamps. There’s no barrier to accepting them. I’m not sure why you think any food-selling business would be left out.
I think they don’t actually understand SNAP and they think you’re talking about literal vouchers like it’s an alternate physical currency.
Why do most big lottery winners end up broke?
Have you considered the actual reasons, to such a degree that you could share with us how you understand as meaningful the comparison with UBI?
Alternatively, are you simply deflecting thoughtlessly with a false analogy?
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South American experiments with printing money make the studies hard to believe. You can’t simply give people money without causing a devaluation in said money. You have to take it away from the market somehow (so, tax the shit out of the rich)
You can’t simply give people money without causing a devaluation in said money.
The government surely can.
The government has the power to levy taxes.
The government has comprehensive powers for regulating the value of currency, through control over the money supply.
At any rate, the government printing money for workers cannot possibility be worse for workers than the government printing money for businesses, as it is doing now.
I suppose, though, you might take comfort in how inflation now is being so effectively prevented, instead of causing needless human suffering.
Ok, this time I am following you. Because I feel really strongly like there’s a lot more we’d agree on than disagree.
In this case, I agree 100% with everything you said.
And I think one common factor in both of our goals is that we shouldn’t be afraid of the government stepping in and preventing capitalism from grinding our poor into dust. We should be fighting for a government that cares more about the well being of its people than the Nasdaq.
Can’t agree with this enough. It drives me crazy when people think the Government should be run like a business. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, and really shows that people don’t use their critical thinking skills.
Businesses shouldn’t even be run like businesses. Employees should never have to be just numbers on an xls file.
I read a study arguing that each time someone utters the letters U, B, and I, currency devalues itself by one thousand fold, chunks of the sky rain down on metropolitan centers, and everyone instantly becomes fat, lazy, and uninterested in any activities except playing video games.
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Without capitalism, we don’t really need UBI because we can just go more socialist.
You don’t need “more money” if society guarantees your quality of life with no strings attached.
You still need a system of currency as individuals should be allowed to use their skills to barter.
I never said you didn’t. Money is a great way to barter labor for luxury when you exist in a system where you can never starve. Nobody is saying the government should cover Wagyu beef for every meal, or free yachts for people.
Government-produced doesn’t have to mean “free at point of service.”
Agreed! This thread is specifically following that “cash in hand” is not what guarantees people quality of life - housing and food are. If someone has all a reasonable quality of life provided for free, “extra cash” is less urgent.
I mentioned elsewhere that I think a government run supermarket would do a lot of good for grocery pricing. My thought was that we’d all get EBT (no means-testing) and the government could save money by running its own supermarket, while simultaneously forcing down the prices of private supermarkets. That is a good compromise that lets us keep a cash basis for food stamps (like everyone seems to prefer over vouchers) while still preventing any concerns people have with EBT affecting prices.
I’m fairly confident that corporations would argue that corporations are people, and therefore should get their allotment of UBI at a rate of one full income per stock share, and they’d probably win that argument too, considering the state of our legislature. Then they would argue that actual people getting their share of UBI is harming corporate profits and get UBI cancelled for everyone except the largest corporations. We still have land reaping subsidies not to grow crops from the New Deal, and all that land has made its way into the hands of the wealthy.
There are real risks of a badly-designed UBI, and it unfortunately locks us more into capitalism instead of less, but innovators giving up on innovation is not one of them.
A badly designed instance belonging to any class may be bad, regardless of the class.
I advocate for UBI, and also, I advocate for UBI that is not badly designed.
Whether the working class seeks to leverage its advantages to depose capital depends on the will and resolve of workers as a class, but in the meantime, advocating against saving, improving, and empowering workers is some combination of apologia and accelerationism.
A badly designed instance may be bad, regardless of the class of designed entities to which the instance belongs.
Not many “designated entities” cost more than quarter of a nation’s GDP, nearly the entire current tax burden of that nation and wouldn’t meet most people’s economic burden. The problem with a UBI is how much of a systematic overhaul it really is. The cost to simply feed, clothe, and house all Americans is an order of magnitude cheaper than a modest UBI. About the only win UBI might have is by “tricking” the Right into supporting it when they’d go nuclear against something reasonable… But the loss UBI might have is by “tricking” the Left to support it when it secretly reads like a Right Wing fantasy. Pro-capitalism, excuse to remove or hobble other protections. And “personal responsibility” BS when an addict uses the UBI check to buy alcohol or fentanyl instead of food.
I advocate for UBI that is not badly designed.
Got an example? I used to be a HUGE fan of UBIs, but every time I read one, I struggled with these massive gaps. The three biggest issues I see with UBIs are:
- In the US at least, the primary taxpayers are also the highest cost of living. Many of those in poverty in places like Manhattan or Boston are likely to have their economic position unaltered from UBI (and in the case of Yang’s plan, would have to opt out of UBI). The common answer I see to this is “move to a Red state”. I don’t want to tell a poor minority they need to move away from their family to Arkansas to make ends meet.
- Many UBIs are inordinately financed by the poor and/or middle-class. This is not a win to me me.
- I’m of the position that the biggest problem with the economy is “market inefficiency”, or to be specific, the profit margins of businesses. The reason the “everyone has housing and food” cost would be $2T, but a conservative UBI would be $4T is the $1T going in the pockets of an entire chain of middlemen, wholesalers, and resellers. If we fix that, UBI becomes less important because we’ve already started socializing. If we don’t fix that, I don’t see UBI being effective.
advocating against saving, improving, and empowering workers is some combination of apologia and accelerationism
You overplay here. I actually agree that the one unquestionable benefit of a UBI is worker leverage. But I think questioning a MULTI-TRILLION-DOLLAR plan that might do nothing but create worker leverage among one class of workers is extremely reasonable, far from apologia. And on the contrary, I think a UBI plan could itself be accelerationism.
And I say “one class of workers” because I mean it. The farther someone gets from their State’s minimum wage, the less leverage a UBI would provide. I’m not talking people making $1M/yr, but people making $45,760 (the US Median Wage). Someone making that much money doesn’t get much (any?) labor benefit from a UBI, but they are likely to be contributing to it in their taxes. See my problem?
EDIT: I’d like to re-summarize. For the cost of every UBI I’ve seen, we could afford to provide food, clothing, homes, and healthcare to every man, woman, and child in the United States, while still having billions or even trillions to spare. A check for $1000/mo, even $2000/mo can’t afford all those things.
For the cost of every UBI I’ve seen, we could afford to provide food, clothing, homes, and healthcare to every man, woman, and child in the United States, while still having billions or even trillions to spare. A check for $1000/mo, even $2000/mo can’t afford all those things.
The cost is the same. Money is the commodity created as the universal exchange. There is no other kind of asset suited for universal distribution that would empower everyone to access the essential commodities distributed through markets.
In fact, framing the issue in terms of cost is misleading. UBI is not the creation of any new resource or asset with intrinsic value. It is simply a political declaration, enforced administratively, that corporations and oligarchs may not hoard to such a degree that others are needlessly deprived.
Before replying to your points, I’d like to clarify that you missed the opportunity to win the discussion with a single answer. I’ll offer that again. Show me an actual UBI plan that I would not see as broken or secretly a Lib-Right utopia. Yang’s isn’t it. I’m not against the concept of a UBI. I’m against every version I’ve ever seen, and YES the price of every version of it.
The cost is the same. Money is the commodity created as the universal exchange
That’s simply untrue. Medicare is proof of that (approximately 143% higher per capita cost for equivalent benefits). Social Infrastructure that does not seek profit will consistently beat infrastructure that does by a large margin. Every day of the week. No need for marketing costs, for wholesale costs, etc. No need for stock prices or a happy board. Hell, I just have to compare the price of my wife’s garden-to-table tomato sauce vs the price of buying a jar. $5 in tomato seeds and 5hrs total of her time makes us about 100 jars of sauce. Even including the price of the jar and transport, there is a gap between material+labor cost and retail cost larger than the cost itself. UBI continues to feed that gap, but socializing can whittle it down. There was once a day that capitalism was about “we can be more efficient at scale, so it’s cheaper to buy groceries than make them yourself”. B2B still works that way. But consumer purchases do not, and never will again.
We could feed every American a balanced diet for approximately $25B/yr with socialized groceries. We can house every American for approximately $100B/yr (extrapolated cost to end homelessness by the homelessness rate) by making government housing something “not just for the poor”. Universal healthcare is conservatively estimated to cost about $1T/yr in the net (progressive estimates argue it’ll overall be a net societal gain within a year or two due to how much money the government has to subsidize various parts of the healthcare industry anyway)
Combined with incidentals, that’s less than $1.5T. Where a $1k/mo UBI would cost $4T and nobody honestly estimates it will solve the above problems.
In fact, framing the issue in terms of cost is misleading. UBI is not the creation of any new resource or asset with intrinsic value
With all due respect, I don’t know what you’re trying to argue now. Of course UBI is not the creation of a new resource or asset. It’s just a plan that taxes America to redistribute wealth blindly. And the fact that Jeff Bezos will probably get a larger check from UBI than he is taxed is on nobody’s radar.
It is simply a political declaration, enforced administratively, that corporations and oligarchs may not hoard to such a degree that others are needlessly deprived.
I’ve yet to see a UBI that would cost oligarchs even a penny, and nowhere in the UBI philosophy would it hit corporations at all. And it’s not “simply” anything. The “simply” political declaration against oligarchs is a strong millionaire tax. The whole goal of UBI is to fund people, so I find it interesting that you just described it in terms that didn’t even mention that.
I’d like to clarify that you missed the opportunity to win the discussion with a single answer. I’ll offer that again. Show me an actual UBI plan that I would not see as broken or secretly a Lib-Right utopia.
You are framing discussion around an appeal to purity and an argument from ignorance.
Your tactics are not supportive of productive discussion.
You also have attempted to negate conceptual relations that are essentially beyond controversy through statistics and Gish gallops.
Yup I died because you said it, so thanks for that.
If not myself, then someone else. Blame the system, not the individual.
If it had to he anyone, im glad it was you!
To be clear, I have no issue with most people working while others do not and live off the system. I think most people will still want to do that something.
UBI isn’t going to do that.
You can point to a handful of small scale studies that show more money works, and yes, on a small scale that is exactly what you’d expect to happen.
This does not work when everyone has that same income. It’s not a matter of 99% of people making smart choices, because I concede that the vast majority of people with sudden access to additional income would spend it wisely.
The issues are twofold.
A) when the people who’ve made it their career to suck every penny out of every possible person know that there are suddenly more pennies to be had, they’re going to raise prices. It’s frankly foolish and shortsighted to expect prices to remain the same or only raise a little. This issue is not raised with small scale experiments. So regardless of their obvious success, they’re not telling the whole story.
2). UBI does absolutely nothing to address the problems it’s actually trying to solve. All it does is print a check every month as a bandaid for some serious problems that will certainly persist. You can’t fix housing without building housing. Individual healthcare will still be tied to your job. College education will be prohibitively expensive and require staffing a lifetime of debt, and we’ll still throw away an obscene amount of food, and people will still go hungry. The only thing that will probably get better is more children will have a secure diet.
And none of that assumes prices would inflate the way they absolutely will. Because even if UBI happened, the people who want all the money the working class has aren’t suddenly going to think it’s ok to leave dollars unspoken for.
The cost of college will steadily increase by about the amount kids are expected to have been able to save by the time they get there. Rent prices will go up to accommodate the new found freedom of spending. And that’s the stuff you have a choice on. You think Comcast will see people with so many extra dollars a month and think “well our customers don’t have another option but we’ll let them keep all that money?”
UBI is just a ticket to absolute dependency on a government check for 99% of Americans, and less financial freedom.
Address the actual problems, don’t just slap a half baked bandaid on it
If you check my post history everywhere, I’m pretty anti-UBI. But the reasons you pitched are both problematic to me.
You “A” point… I don’t like capitalism, but when there isn’t a monopoly, increased customer-base doesn’t have the effect you’re thinking without scarcity. More people able to afford more means more businesses can compete for business. The price increases would come from paying for the increased worker leverage, and those wouldn’t be drastic.
The opposite effect is true in some sectors. Studies suggest (consistently) that UBI cause so-called “wealth-flight”, which reduces the value of housing and reduces the cost of living… But also reduces quality of life by reducing availability of things. The thing is, a little bit of socialism would counteract wealth-flight, as would a situation where the wealth is not in a position to leave freely.
Your “2” point is false. There are a lot of MAJOR cons to UBI, but studies suggest UBI would have a positive effect on housing affordability and worker leverage. Other than healthcare, your concerns don’t seem to match the models and the studies. My add-on concern, however, is addiction. Poverty starvation isn’t a risk under most UBI plans, but addict starvation still is.
When “what can I afford to pay” is one of the dominant market forces on anything but luxury, capitalism becomes dangerously fragile and businesses know it. They want to maximize profit, but they do so against demand and competition.
And none of that assumes prices would inflate the way they absolutely will
Most economists don’t think UBI would cause all that much inflation. Increasing a customer-base is not the same as increasing demand. There’s no addition of scarcity. Food prices don’t go up if we don’t run out of food - and we have so much food going to waste that isn’t going to happen. Same with housing and rent. The question isn’t “how much can the sucker afford to pay me”, it’s “how much can we get for this?”. Affordability is only one factor in that, and generally considered a “problem” to all parties when that factor applies. So long as businesses are not MORE consolidated (see above UBI concerns) prices are still market-driven - driven by competition and acceptability.
It’s valid to not LIKE capitalism. I hate it. But we should still understand it before criticizing things.
The cost of college will steadily increase by about the amount kids are expected to have been able to save by the time they get there
This is simply not factual. One thing people miss is that college profit margins have been on a slow decline (and in the single-digits since 2016). They’re NOT charging more based on how much they think they can sucker out of people. They’re charging what they do based on the friction of “making enough money to thrive” and “charging low enough that people are willing to come here”. Yes, cost of college might go up slightly, but not in the way you’re talking. Again, the issue is that “affordability” is a terrible market force and rarely the one these types of businesses care about.
UBI is just a ticket to absolute dependency on a government check for 99% of Americans, and less financial freedom
There is no study or model that says UBI will give us LESS financial freedom. The real argument is that it won’t give more financial freedom to most Americans, and the cost is prohibitive for that limited gain.
Address the actual problems, don’t just slap a half baked bandaid on it
Short of “no questions asked unemployment benefits for life”, there aren’t really any solutions to many of the problems on the table. Ultimately, all Americans, all humans, deserve a life of all necessities AND some luxuries.
At this time, nobody is seriousliy trying to solve for luxuries except UBI, and nobody is seriously trying to solve for organic worker-leverage except UBI (unions will never be the full answer).
I would think UBI would be implemented to track inflation. I also assume it would be funded by progressive taxes, not just spinning up the printing presses (which would cause inflation). Effectively, it would be a wealth redistribution program cycling money from corporations and the rich down to the poor.
I really don’t trust the government (which is pretty much captured by corporations) to implement it well though. They’d probably give everyone just enough money to barely survive, without health care, in a van down by the river or something.
The claim of UBI leading to runaway inflation is a myth given by reactionary propaganda.
UBI would represent a major advance for the working class. Advocating against it seems impossible to reconcile with any attitude that is not accelerationist.
Much of your commentary seems to reproduce mythical tropes such as of the “welfare queen”.
Seeking meaningful contribution to society is a robust human tendency. Doing so under constant threat from greedy employers is not necessary.
Something is not propaganda because you disagree with it.
I also make it clear in literally my first sentence that people living off the system without working is fine, but that most people probably won’t.
I’m not sure you actually read the post you’re responding to.
I responded to the text of your comment, and my concern about your opening sentence is not its lacking truth, as much as the litany of untruthful claims you later made in contradiction.
So no, you didn’t.
I did. Your comment is littered with mythical tropes. Even the opening is suspect, due to the suggestion of people wanting to “live off the system”.
Most want simply that their lives be not dominated by systems that are abstract, absurd, or inhuman.
Even if some cope differently than you, perhaps consider not judging so narrowly.
Something is not scientific fact because you declare it to be.
There’s scientific facts, economic reality, and then there’s the pipe dream that suddenly corporations will be less greedy just “cuz” under UBI.
I have heard many different opinions about UBI.
I have never heard any suggestion that it would make corporations less greedy.
Perhaps your objection is directed at a strawman.
Who’s we?
Our capitalist society
You are welcome to feed the world bro, I have enough with my family and pets
That is kind of the point.
“Got mine” huh?
Not even close that’s the fucking point dude
Nobody is suggesting taking from you then.
Sounds like you are suffering under capitalism.
Is society entirely capitalist?
Does it matter?
The number 1 mode of production in developed countries is Capitalism. There are aspects outside of it, but Capitalism’s inherent class structure allows it to exert influence on aspects of society outside the Capitalist Mode of Production, such as the Electorate.
Yes.
Fat boy Dr Manhattan?
Me, you and our tax dollars
Stakeholder of a variety of agriculture and food manufacturing corporations here.
How 'bout nah? I’d rather make a profit and let the government also buy food from me to feed the needy if the government wants to do that this election cycle.
You’re perpetuating a system that causes 9 million deaths per year.
It’s the government’s responsibility to feed the people that elected them. This is not the responsibility of producers. Producers have a right to make money from their work.
If you support the right of money to be earned by work, then why do support private owners claiming profit, by depriving workers of the full value generated by their labor?
Is profit not antagonist to the values you espouse?
Farmers where I come from are generally the owner and the worker. They already get the “full” value generated.
Funnily enough due to the government paying them, this allows the manufacturers and stores to drive down the price of goods (when bought from the producer).
The main idea behind this was to drive down the value of goods for the consumer and to ensure the EU produces food locally, but it has created an ugly transfer of wealth where manufacturers and stores now earn more. Consumer barely sees the difference.
So most likely something should change for manufacture and vendors as well if the system was to be made fair.
Locking prices for manufacture and vendors is not a thing. Giving subsidies to them will stifle competition.
Agriculture subsidies do help producers compete with China, US and other outside markets, but at the cost of reward for labor.
I think the system is not oppressive, but it certainly is not fair. Issues crop up in the middle of the value chain and there are no easy solutions.
If farmers produce food by working lands they own, then they are not being exploited by land owners.
However, as you observe, under our currrent systems, the value they realize from their labor is determined by food prices, as resolved by markets through which food is commodified.
Businesses that exploit workers also participate in commodity food markets.
Thus, as long as food is produced by profiting from worker exploitation, and is exchanged through commodity markets, all food production and distribution is bound to the profit motive, and therefore subject to distortion away from satisfaction of human need for survival and flourishing.
I believe practices such as the one you describe, in principle may serve to mitigate some such distortions, and to advance the interests of the working class.
Unfortunately, EU states, as other states around the world, have now fallen under neoliberalism, which simply exacerbates the wealth transfer from workers to large owners that is already inevitable as a structural consequence of relations under capitalist production and distribution.
Now, you have not answered my question.
Is profit not antagonist to the values you espouse?
Yeah, EU is slipping. We need to pay attention to the flaws that we’ve been introducing.
I don’t find profit to be an inherent antagonist. I believe that workers (even CEOs) need to be rewarded for good work. This is where profit comes in. Without profit there can be no pay rises when job experience and responsibilities increase.
Unchecked profits on the other hand… This comes in many shapes. Tax havens and top-heavy distribution of profit spring to mind immediately. These are counter-intuitive.
It is acceptable for the company owners to receive most profit as they have taken the largest risks in terms of capital. However, things like inheritance, bonuses and stock options can distort the degree of risk taken. A newly-hired megacorp CEO will not have taken significant monetary risk relative to the founder.
Systems should be in place to reduce unfair wealth distribution. Eg. Stock options should be given to the entire company workforce rather than just the top dogs. Annual bonuses should apply to all.
Profit-seeking drives innovation and efficiency. These to me are good values as we look for incentives to fight climate change or improving working conditions. Obviously legislation must follow suit and ensure it provides structures that encourage this while protecting people from skewed power hierarchies.
Profit is not pay for work.
Profit is the share of value removed from wages, that is, removed from pay given to workers, who provide the labor that generated the value in a business, by business owners, who contribute no labor for generating the value in the business.
What is the full value of a workers labor?
The value of products realized at the point of sale, minus the costs of (non-labor) inputs and operating expenses, is the value generated by the labor of workers in a business.
If a business is privately owned for the profit of its owners, then the profit is a share of the value generated by the workers, but claimed by owners, who contribute no labor toward generating the value.
Suppose there is a a construction company that wins a million dollar contract to build parking lots. How should the owner compensate workers? What about subcontractors and suppliers?
I am not offering anyone business advice.
Let me repeat myself. Profit seeking in agribusiness kills 9 million people per year.
How and where?
Everywhere, you dimwit
How are they dying? Is it due to issues in quality control? Worker safety? Or are you attributing world hunger deaths to the agricultural industry? Big numbers are cool, but they’re awesome when they are elaborated.
Starvation, numbnuts.
People are dying of starvation.
Try to follow along. I know it’s hard, but please try.
I’m pepetuating a system that feeds billions
Food is produced through agriculture.
Food produced through agriculture within capitalist society is distributed such that some have plenty while others are needlessly deprived.
So let’s get some food stamp programs going. Idk what else to tell you
No one needs your advice.
You already conceded you have no wish to make any contribution to society.
Workers would be fine without parasites like you.
You think we’re different 😂
I am not a parasite boasting about my blood sucking.
I wasn’t aware shareholders grew the crops.
Shareholders perpetuate the system. Did I miss a comment somewhere?
I’m pepetuating a system that feeds billions
The only thing you’re perpetuating is the exploitation of the working class on an item with inelastic demand that causes 9 million people to die per year due to a lack of that item. You don’t feed anyone, you don’t supply any labor in production, you extract profit from the labor and suffering of others.
You have this whole understanding of who/what I am.
It’s ridiculous 😆
Maybe stop behaving like a useless moron, then?
We are telling you how the system works.
You are telling us how you are interacting with it.
We are not obligated to withhold any judgments predicated on the combination of the two.
The suggestion was that land can be utilized without being owned.
Perhaps you did miss it.
I don’t see that suggestion anywhere. Sun must be in my eyes
OK troll.
Yeah, just send some food to a place that doesn’t have enough. Simple enough.
Except doing that puts the local agriculture out of business. No one buys food when someone’s giving it away, right? I suppose you can just continue sending food to that country that’s now completely dependent on your country. Good plan. That is if your plan is to establish a colonial empire with client states completely dependent on yours.
How about a socialist revolution? Nobody has ever died in a famine in a socialist country! Oh… wait.
Nah the best strat involves subsidizing the local agriculture industry, expanding it while temporarily providing just enough food to top up to area with the needed calories to prevent people from starving. Once the local agriculture industry has expanded, you’ve succeeded in the whole “teach a man how to fish rather than giving a man a fish” thing.
So you have to send tractors, develop irrigation, maybe send some GMO seeds that have higher crop yields if you’re more concerned about people starving than first world moral objections.
But yeah, let’s just feed people.
If current systems of imperial hegemony were dismantled, then all regions would become more resilient, through greater food independence, and food producers could become more prosperous.
It is confounding how, through reading the post, you became determined to object over someone’s “plan is to establish a colonial empire with client states completely dependent on yours”.
You lack imagination and swallow the pill handed to you. Maybe the economic theory is just bullshit thought to you by the people who benefit most from said theory.
Give credit where it’s due.
Great imagination certainly was required to speculate the “plan is to establish a colonial empire”.
crazy idea, let’s just have world peace and end all crime. Wait, why isn’t everyone doing what I specifically requested?
Unlike world peace and ending crime, we have enough resources to feed everyone in the world right now. We wouldn’t even necessarily need to end capitalism to do it.
Boy oh boy, I’d love to see you starved out for a month. You’d do a 180° turn faster than Tony Hawks.
Hunger is the one thing our social programs have done right. If you don’t have the funds for food, you can get food stamps and there’s plenty of food pantries to get food from. The only people starving the united states are those who are either selling their food stamps for drugs, live in bumfuck nowhere, or refuse to go to a food pantry.
This is why the US government runs the mail service, since it guarantees delivery to every address, no matter how remote, even if at a loss.
This is why education should stay a government service, so that schools exist for every student, even when a given class is too small.
And this is why medicine will always need a socialized element, since rare diseases are not profitable enough to treat.
“Oh, no… the cost of my groceries are shooting up… why???”
This is why. Keep the money printing press going in your broke government to give you those “free” stuff. Enjoy the consequences of your shitty decisions that came from being ignorant by teaching you nothing useful in the “free” government education facilities and brainwashing you.
I love seeing consequences. I love seeing you cry. Cry more. Remember: the more you cry, the more people like me are laughing.
Edit: nothing is funnier than watching ignorant people trying to justify their ignorance in these replies. I guess you can keep your MMT and money printing. You’ll live through the consequences, and I’ll continue laughing at your pathetic misery. Why should I care? Enjoy!
I recommend you read about Modern Monetary Theory. The US has Monetary Sovereignty in a fiat currency, and therefore is not limited by taxation when it comes to federal funding. Instead, the US is limited by the real economy, which is worth trillions of dollars more than the federal budget. If the federal government stopped with the federal budget and just spent on the real economy, it wouldn’t impact inflation in any way. We do this already with the military, like outspending the USSR on military tech for a decade, sending hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment to Ukraine, and spending billions to support Israel’s genocide.
I’m guessing facts won’t work here. The “consequences” he’s laughing about are a consistent >100% ROI on welfare. He’s laughing because he’s proud conservatives are hurting the economy (and even their own bank accounts!) by hurting the poor, either out of willful ignorance or willful malice.
Reactionaries are not hurting the economy.
They are hurting the working class, including themselves, while helping the oligarchs.
Why, you may ask, do they hurt themselves, and help the oligarchs?
The reason is that they always do what the man on the television screen tells them.
Reactionaries are not hurting the economy.
Weakening welfare hurts the economy. That’s what he’s laughing about. Welfare has always been the biggest no-brainer in economic theory. It always makes the country more than you spend. Even the wealthy.
Why, you may ask, do they hurt themselves, and help the oligarchs? The reason is that they always do what the man on the television screen tells them.
Do you know many conservatives, for real? I’m not talking Trump-heads. I’m talking actual conservatives. There’s this underlying attitude that the world is a “free” place where you work hard and earn your way to betterment. You hear it in the voices of the older generation, but also the newer generation, when they talk about things like “work ethic”, or someone being “too proud to beg” when there’s a disaster and family or friends try to offer help. Have you never heard anyone say “I don’t want nothin for free”, or tell their boss “I don’t need that kinda money, just pay me ____ and I’ll be happy”? I’ve seen and heard all those things.
One way to look at conservativism is that it’s means based, where the Left is more ends based. A conservative cares more about “doing the right thing” than “making the world a better place”, They see the government’s place as “enforcing peace” and nothing else, so social programs seem like a giant mandated charity to them.
Conservatives rarely oppose welfare because they think it doesn’t work. They oppose welfare because they think it’s wrong whether it works or not. And that’s not a talking head telling them that, it’s decades of growing up surrounded by that same hierarchical mindset.
Like John F Kennedy said “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Ask what you can do for your country”. There’s people who take that to heart and feel it’s not the country’s job to make their life a better place. And will allow themselves to sink into poverty holding on to that belief.
They’re horribly wrong, but if you don’t understand why they feel that way, it’s hard to help move the country forward.
There is no “The Economy”.
Weakening welfare hurts workers.
There is no “The Economy”.
There really is. Even without capitalism, the median buying power of an individual will always be a thing.
Weakening welfare hurts workers.
Obviously. It hurts everyone, so of course it hurts workers.
All money is free. It is not taken from some limited store, but rather created by government, freely.
The value, stability, and legitimacy of money is sustained by the supremacy of state power. By such power, the government both determines the supply and shapes the distribution of money, and is assured never to be insolvent.
No distribution of money is natural or naturally superior.
Money is a social construct directed by political will.
Price inflation currently occurring is largely due to the political choice to distribute money to corporations.
That is, as a consequence of particular political choices, the already imbalanced distribution has become even more unfavorable toward workers.
If the political will were rather toward distributing money to workers, then prices may follow a pattern of gradual inflation, but as long as workers’ income keeps pace, workers would not be harmed by it even in the slightly.
You do seem offended. Whatever are you talking about?
I don’t see your point other than an explicit joy in the suffering of others. Do I have that right? You think people should go hungry for your personal pleasure?
They must be having a miserable time to get so much out of other people suffering, but that’s in line with most reactionary asses I’ve met.
Why is the literacy rate lower than it was before the DoE was created?
deleted by creator
Privatisation hounds do the same shit all over: enshittify a public service then offer a private alternative as a kind of shitty trojan savoir to the problem they created
Because it isn’t? It’s up by about 6%. The numbers are more accurate as well.
Frankly, even if your statement was correct, it would be the equivalent of asking why only people who go to the doctor have cancer.
Lastly, if we are throwing out random facts and trying to extrapolate the value of a system, why is Cuba’s literacy rate always close to 100%?
Probably some combination of our definition of literacy being adjusted, and the availability of more accurate data about populations and how educated they are.
Great question, why is it always Republican States as well?
The bastians of the homeschooling movement that allows household chores to be considered curriculum because of a campaigned for lack of oversight is also where there are low literacy rates? Say it isn’t so…
socialized healthcare will still be better at popular diseases. None of the approaches are particularly good for rare disease sufferers. But socialized is not a silver bullet.
The point is that private healthcare is driven by the profit motive.
The state is the only institution under our current social organization both that carries capacities at the same scale as corporations, and that legitimately may be supporting the interests of the public.
I live with socialized healthcare, its nice. Especially for the poor, who would not be getting any without it. But you get random doctor that might be good or not very good. Some medicine you wont get cause its too expensive to procure. In the us, it seems if you got good coverage, you get better healthcare than pretty much all countries with socialized healthcare today. But i dont live in the us, so i dont know
But i dont live in the us, so i dont know
Obviously not.
So you are saying you dont get better healthcare in the US than say, UK, if you have a good healthcare insurance?
You can buy anything money can buy (if you have the money to buy it).
If you are elite enough to get top notch health insurance in the United States, but not elite enough to hire a personal
supplierdoctor, then you get top-notch healthcare.If you’re below that tier, you might get adequate healthcare but not great healthcare. The population health of Europe seems to be consistently better on their socialized programs.
Now yes, UK’s NHS has been deteriorating specifically correlating to when the Tories outsourced it to commercial providers so that’s an instance that appears to be socialized healthcare that got corrupted by capitalism. As is George W. Bush’s modification of Medicare so that we clients allegedly choose a provider that is then paid by Medicare. It also shifted prescriptions from Medicaid to Medicare D, again outsourcing fulfillment to privatized suppliers.
What is curious is that medical services, medicines and medical treatments cost typically more than twice as much in the US than they do anywhere else for the same thing so we’re paying extra, whether we’re getting premium or shit. As a result, those who have to pay out of pocket will often get their meds shipped from Canada or Mexico.
So regardless of what your medical system outside of the US, the medical system in the US is not a good model to follow.
I’m not quite sure your point. Any medical care program will be better at treating common diseases than rare diseases. There’s just more data to pull in research and development. We get more examples of what works and doesn’t.
But the point of socialized services is to make sure everyone gets served.
One of the major concerns regarding any good or service that is essential (not just medical care, but food, water and power) is that selling it as a commodity is a moral hazard. Since the customer is obligated to buy (or starve, freeze in the elements, die of dehydration) an unchecked capitalist can charge any price and, historically, has.
Before the age of states and movements away from monarchy towards (more) public-serving governments, we depended on the Church’s (meager) charity, and just accepted that a lot of people were going to die year after year, from famine, plague, freezing and so on. But I think we’re trying to do better than the middle ages.
Here in the US, the federal and state governments are completely captured by plutocratic interests, and it’s moving back towards autocracy. And our Republican officials have expressed that they’re okay with letting small children work long hours in hazardous environments, and letting poor children starve.
There are some very serious problems with various economics systems around the world. None of theses systems is actually capitalism and all of them feed people.
“Capitalism” is a theoretical extreme form of a market economy which nobody practices. In particular, all the larger economies are heavily regulated and have a lot of social programs.
Food scarcity has been so thoroughly beaten that in “Capitalist” countries the problem is reversed. Poor people can easily get all the calories they want. In many developed countries, poverty tracks with obesity.
If only everyone else have as much as The United States there would be no world hunger.
Dangit bobbuh
I’ll make sure to tell the food bank this next time I volunteer, they wouldn’t want to go against capitalism after all.
Capitalism is not the reason for food banks being possible, but it is the reason for them being necessary.
My point is that the image would have you believe they don’t exist “because capitalism,” when in fact they do have them, and I know this because I volunteer and fucking hate potato day.
Something (intuition I suppose) also tells me that they also exist/have existed in socialist countries, and monarchies, etc, and I’d argue the soviet union’s breadlines were actually an example of a food bank by a different name, seeing as both serve the same function (passing out free food to the hungry), and that “free food locations” by whatever name under whatever communist utopia you envision would also be indistinguishable from food banks, and even if we get the replicators, those are food ATMs (pun, 'cause “bank” lol.)
I think everyone is generally aware of food banks.
I would try not to worry about it too much.
What, me worry?
Was there a watchmen parody in king of the hill that I missed? Or did someone just make this?
It’s just this one edit, it’s been around for like a decade though
Thats my purse!
Don’t question Space Bobby
