A better solution is to focus on worker’s rights and labor regulations. Of course that opens the internationalism question, but so too would ubi.
At the same time, we currently have plenty of people who do not want to work and do indeed not work, that will not change regardless of what you implement. I also think that happy and healthy non-working people are worth more to humanity than unhappy or unhealthy working people.
Sorry about the cost of your bathroom addition though.
How about: a just and civil economic system is one where the more utility I produce the higher quality of life I can achieve?
This is very different from what you implied (being punished for creating value). Taxes and UBI aren't in opposition to this. It still rewards production and those that create value. It also recognizes that hard work isn't always valuable (digging a tunnel with a spoon is harder than with heavy machinery. But the latter provides more value). Maybe we should frame things this way instead. Progressive taxes do not result in situations where a raise in pay causes a decrease in take-home money. It does instead address the issue that money is sticky and the mere existence of capital passively generates capital (which actually means you generate wealth without doing work). Fine at certain levels but clearly can get out of control (generate wealth for retirement vs generational/perpetual wealth where your children end up wealthier than you passively).
That's to say that functional courts and a state that acts as the only legitimate applicator of force tends to be a lot better for the rich, and those too fall (or themselves turn on the rich, too) when they stray too far from the line.
Not the right framing, but not far off. It depends where you set the threshold and how much you extract. Remember that money is a resource where positive feedback loops exist: "you have to have money to make money", "the first million is the hardest", or "passive income." We can think of money as sticky and attractive. Momentum matters. Also remember that a capitalist market relies on competition and money to be fluid and constantly exchanged. Transactions are not zero-sum, but many times result in a positive value. This is even true in a pure fair transaction and without considering external costs like taxes.
tldr: there are sources and sinks in the economy and this is conditioned on the value in the previous time-step. Capitalism works well when value is continually exchanged: meaning sinks are bad.
Once we consider these things, "fair" gets more complicated. One can argue that it isn't fair that wealth begets wealth. That certain goods have an economic value that is not being captured by the evaluations, and are often difficult to put price tags on (e.g. air quality). Tragedy of the commons is quite real. One can also argue that it isn't "fair" that the system does not optimize for societies and instead optimizes individuals. Fair is difficult to define and none of this is as easy as it appears on the surface. Both pro and anti-UBI people make these mistakes. I'm not attacking a particular side but rather suggesting this isn't as straight forward as you have characterized.
Also important to stress that most (limited) experiments suggest this assumption to bee true. UBI is not as radical as many people pretend it is. It is essentially a one size fits all solution replacing all existing welfare programs with, in many cases, better outcomes.
Guess what: That's true for pretty much everything. That doesn't mean discounting the evidence we do have because it's just that, evidence, is a reasonable thing to do.
Yet nobody has ever proposed a version of UBI that is truly universal. It's always limited to a certain in-group. This incentivizes the in-group to stretch the most out of their UBI: that is outsource all menial work to a permanent underclass of immigrants who don't receive free government money, which is exactly what happens in Saudi Arabia.
I pointed out upthread that the so-called "universal" aspect of UBI is a dealbreaker. Special groups will complain, and have mass support for their complaints, if ever UBI is rolled out.
In your world, it's "fair" if 20yo gamers get the same monthly stipend as a 40yo cripple. In reality you'd have complaints from special groups that will be supported in their grievance by the clear majority of the population.
Counterpoint: not a single person born was asked to be put here. None. Every one of us was put here because 2 people chose to have sex (with or without consent) and left us as a result.
To that original sin of non-consent, the least those already here owe us is the minimum to live, without any "input".
> Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? I don't see how that makes sense.
The sun provides nearly limitless energy. Natural resources can be used to make things. The 'free' resources are already there. To say that every human gets a 'share' of resources upon birth isn't exactly a foreign thought, either. The richie's with trust funds get this... But somehow daddy dearest having others work hard for him means he benefits.
Yes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We also must acknowledge the tragedy of the commons, and that just by existing both utility is being extracted from them (in the modern era) and natural resources that there is no question that they have a right to (air, water, etc) are being utilized and modified by others. E.g. a coal processing plant provides a lot of utility (electricity) but the economic model does not account for the costs that this has on both a global (carbon) and local (pollution) consequences on shared goods (that are innate rights).
Honestly, I have no idea how people are so willing to sacrife human rights, right literally millions of people had to die in order for us to have them, for the sake of profit and capitalism, benefits only an extremely limited number of people actually have.
What about human rights of those at the other side of a stick? Is it a human right to demand something from another human being? Is it a human right to have to provide to someone?
Articles 22 and 25 in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
Either you are trolling, trying to pass as a ultra-tough meritocrate or you just don't care about other people. Maybe all of the above.
Edit: All edge and no point sums up your comment, and the GP, pretty well, I guess.
But ok, I'll bite. Nobody made the UN king, the UN so contains a vast majority of nations. As stated, those rights are universal, and apply to everyone, including you. Since th UN signed of, basically every nation did as well. That a lot are not respecting them is a different story, but doesn't neuter those rights.
Also, those rights, one way or the other and to various degrees, are already enshrined in western democratic constititions (I don't whether or those sets of law are actually called that).
And no, human rights are not defined by a majority vote. Otherwise we would have the human right to be held as slave, to be lynched because of skin color, sexual orientation or religion, imprisoned because of your political opinion without trial and a whole lot of other nasty things.
Currently, the UN isbthe hoghest, most universal body tondefine such things we have. If sometjing better comes along, fine. For the UN to be born, we needed WW2 and millions of murdered civilians. That answers your question of who died, childreny, the elderly across fronts and beligerent nations all over the world. And the same kind of people continue to die because they don not have those rights everyone in the free democracies takes for granted.
And let's not be dicks by denying our fellow human beings the most basic freedoms and human dignity. Argueing for that isn't edgy, it is pathetic and only shows incredible levels of priviledge.
Even your own examples illustrate the fragility of these rights.
> And no, human rights are not defined by a majority vote. Otherwise we would have the human right to be held as slave, to be lynched because of skin color, sexual orientation or religion, imprisoned because of your political opinion without trial and a whole lot of other nasty things.
Surely human rights _are_ defined by majority vote, given that not all humans had the right to be free in relatively recent history in the US. What force would these human rights have if they were defined by the Sri Lankan government and held by no other?
Hell, I feel like I'm trapped in an interview with Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro...
Once somebody's „human rights“ has to be provided by someone else and is someone else's work... It's no longer a „human right“. It's forced labour from the providing side. This modern version of so-called „human rights“ is a disgrace to once great idea.
Now you need to figure out rent-control.
But that could screw up the construction market, reducing the incentive to build, and thus the supply. And quite possibly the quality of said supply.
And that’s just housing.
That's never going to happen. UBI will not replace existing welfare payouts, it will augment them.
Until society is ready to let people and children die in the street because they (or their parents, in the case of children) gambled or boozed all of the UBI away, or it got stolen from them, or they simply burned it due to mental health problems, we still have to have safety nets for people who don't have money.
Which is the whole point of the current welfare assistance system.
UBI is also a no-go in terms of "universal". It's just too unfair. Why should a healthy 20yo get paid (to play video games) the same as a crippled 40yo? The latter literally needs more money just to survive, and doesn't have the same employment options as the healthy 20yo gamer.
If ever UBI is rolled out, you'll see on day two the complaints come rolling in from special groups.
What's unfair is to take away someone's welfare once they finally land a minimal pay job. That diminishes or removes the incentive to actually find a job.
Did I say otherwise?
Me agreeing that taking away
> someone's welfare once they finally land a minimal pay job.
Is not the same as me agreeing that all welfare systems are unfair (You're only considering unemployment welfare payments. There's others).
I don't understand how you can confuse the two.
It's possible to have what almost everyone would consider a fair welfare system.
It's not possible to have what even a significant minority would consider to be a fair UBI system.
Welfare systems have a goal of ensuring that people who need more get more.
UBI has the goal of ensuring that no one gets more than anyone else.
Another welfare system in addition to the existing welfare system is quite undesirable for most proponents of UBI who (like the parent I responded to earlier) present "no other welfare system" as a benefit of UBI.
I think it worth considering UBI in this light. I'm not a proponent of eliminating all other welfare.
I do. Because these sentences are in opposition, not support. If they are undesirable in the workforce (reduce productivity or whatever) then why would you want them working? If they drain x dollars from the system, UBI costs y dollars, and if y < x, then it is profitable to pay them to do nothing. Incentive structures are complex and so this is going to be more difficult than the simple equation I wrote, but it serves as a guideline. But I don't think most people want to live the basic life, the minimum.
Here's how I see it: if the measure of a man is how he treats someone who can give him nothing, then the measure of a country is how they treat those that do nothing for them. In other words: the floor. I don't believe countries should have ceilings on wealth or how quality of life, but they should have floors (they all do fwiw). That's what we should focus on more: the floor, not the ceiling.
Personally I think USSR was somewhat close to UBI. Working was mandatory and pay was crap. But everybody looked the other way when somebody slacked or was drunk at work all the time. It was next to impossible to get fired for poor performance or drink at work and so on. The result was that good chunk of population abused this by drinking their days away and doing least possible amount of work. While other portion of population was fed up with the former and didn't give a fuck either. Productivity was very low. Aside from shadow economy where the later group worked their asses off. Doing their best to build a good life for themselves and not support slackers too much.
Once we reach that point, as a society we have to answer the question of what happens to those people who find themselvesbout ofbwork. And those left with dull and dangerous jobs, usually the underpaid ones as well.
As long as you are a proponent of unlimited capitalism and still have a job, not varing is one answer. Caring about more than oneself, or taking a more long term view, aiming for some kind of social net, and UBI is an option, is only prudent. Too much social unrest is recipe for disaster, and ultimately revolution (history has examples for that as recent as the Arab Spring). Smart ruling classes want to avoid that, e.g. Bismarck who invented the Prussian / German to combat a raise of socialist ideologies.
Not smart elites, and wannabe elites, optimize for their own short term benefit. As did French nobility once.
However, there's lots and lots of stuff that needs to be done for society to function properly. E.g. all sorts of community work. From organising local community events to self-support groups to picking up trash in a local park. A lot of stuff works (or doesn't, looking at mental health statistics) just because a volunteer pops up. However, if we as society suddenly had a fuckton of money available, maybe we could improve here? Hire people who can run arts classes in local community center. Or, first, build the damn community center :) Or hire more people to pick up trash.
It's not economically viable to keep streets and parks clean. Or offer free arts classes. But if we don't care about what is economically viable, maybe we could put resources there?
Of course, with UBI, maybe someone would volunteer to pick up trashes while getting a meager amount of money. Or maybe he will sit on a couch because picking trash is a boring compared to playing Guitar Hero 24/7.
However, building strong communities with passionate people may create all sorts of issues in the future. It's easier to control couch potatoes relying on government handouts for generations.
I think right here is where the issue is going to come in. Currently society at large won't be getting that money, it's mostly accreting in the pockets of an small set of increasingly ultra wealthy people
Do they perhaps prefer covering for execs bonuses?
It’s really weird how many people will wail and rage against welfare for both their peers and poorer people, but have no issue whatsoever making a someone else richer.
Just to be clear, I personally have no issue with either, as long as it feels reasonable.
Many of them are still better than having nobody and if they have to work to get money they are also somewhat incentivized to at least do the bare minimum.
Counterpoint: Some management handbooks consider both unmotivated and motivated workers problematic. Would you rather deal with a highly motivated moron or a substantially less motivated Einstein?
Except that most of the people who did not work actually did work. They would hunt for food, chop fire wood, haul their garbage to the dump, cook their own food, raise their own children, and do the many other things that are necessary to live.
I'm not saying that they type of person you describe does not exist. They do. Some of them lived in the very community I described. I am saying that because we tend to have a very specific, and peculiar, idea of what work means. We almost universally mean working for another. It doesn't much matter whether we are an employer or an employee, the product of that work is typically meant for someone outside of our family, social circles, and community. At the same time we dismiss any form of labour that isn't based upon some sort of transaction, the type of labour that is central to the health of both families and communities. Our culture has these notions so entrenched that the lack of a "proper job" does destroy people, psychologically. Not only is one's sense of value lost, but the value of other types of relationships is greatly diminished.
I don't really see worker rights or labour regulations as a complete solution since we are dealing with a problem that is stitched into the fabric of our society. Likewise, UBI is not a complete solution. If we were to dive into UBI today, which is about providing for people's basic needs from our surpluses (it is not about providing easy wealth), some people would be destroyed because we have never put much thought into what it means to live without there being some sort of transaction. We have never put much thought into what a non-authoritarian workplace would look like. We have never put much thought into what we need and our relationship with society as a whole.
The question that I have trouble answering is how can we build the foundation of a society where we aren't simply asking whether we work to live or live to work? A society where people's needs are met without coercion. A world where people want to contribute to a more egalitarian society.
I have a very hard time buying the narrative that were people to not work to make a living that they'd be a net drain on society. I see little evidence. I also see this as claiming that a post-scarce society is impossible. This is also critical as we live in a time where the potential for a post-scarce world exists (robotic workers liberate humanity from labor). It is even critical if we live in a semi or limited post scarce world, which is the transitional period to a post scarcity society (we're possibly in this).
[0] I say I'd like to read math books, research, and publish openly. Not far from what I do now (academia). People counter me saying that that's work.
Not least it is paid in arrears and is designed to take 6 weeks to get the first (backdated) payment, by which time anyone who actually needs it is already likely to be overdrawn to the tune of a month's rent and utilities.
https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/10/universal-cre...
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/universal-credit-chaos...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-cr...
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/government-benefit-sa...
The Australian Centrelink programme is a pretty good example of what happens: one government introduces a system of unemployment benefits and then later a different conservative government (whose members and voting base don't like poor people) are able to pervert the system through means testing provisions and other bureaucratic hurdles to effectively prevent a large subset of eligible persons from actually collecting the benefits to which they are entitled, but without having to deal with the political fallout of actually ending or reducing benefits on paper.
Assessors are pressured, and incentivised financially, to get through as many cases as possible[0]. One gentleman recorded his assessment and found multiple falsifications[1]:
> On his phone recording you can clearly hear the assessor carrying out a peak test to measure his lung function, and reading out the data.
> But in the final report, his last reading appears to have doubled from 150 L/min to 300 L/min, making him seem better than he actually was.
The means testing of disability benefits in the UK is such an abject failure, that a noticeable number of people die within a month of being declared fit for work[2].
[0] https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/pip-assessors-paid-bo...
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41581060
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-di....
Labor - I build a fence for my home, or fix plumbing, or make miniatures, or do cool stuff. I and those around me benefit from my labor. I may help a friend move. Or help to do light construction, or networking. Again, we benefit.
Work is labor where someone else takes the lion's share of the labor and keeps the surplus, where you nearly never see the result and keep scraps of your worth. You'll never see your 'worth', and all attempts will be made to hide it. The 'who' whom gets this massive surplus is the company you work for. Lots of hand-wavey reasons will be made why your share is low.
I have no problem with labor. I and those around me benefit. Work is exploitative and serves to make someone else richer at my, my family's, and my friends expense.
...and? That's fine. there will always be some people who do not want to work. a UBI guarantees somewhat basic level of living conditions at least.
I failed to consider the audience.
I’d like to opt out of paying for war but sadly I can’t. My tax dollars going to help people instead of kill and oppress them seems like a huge upgrade.
Is your work really helping society?
In seriousness, I wish there was more self-awareness like this in our field.
Good. It's preferable that people who don't want to work stay home and do other things, rather than coming into the office and not working.
If we need everyone who can work to actually work, if we want to force people to work with a threat that if they don't contribute to society then they'll be (for example) homeless - well, then we don't (yet) need UBI and should not implement UBI until(if) we get the problem which UBI would fix.
most ppl dont want to work some unrelateable, bullshit under time constraints for richer ppl they dont even know or like. so mostly we chug along and put in the required performances.
imo this is unesessary and counterproductive since we have gained access to automation of most physical and a lot of office work.
Instead, we should focus on getting people to work. Whatever that takes. We should reward those who want to work and penalize those who don't. If you can't work due to a real disability, you should be helped.
Ah, the old whip, yes… -_-'
Fuck you.
Even with our current systems, we have a situation where people live in such precarity that employers are able to treat them abusively/illegally. An egregious example would be "companies hiring children to clean slaughterhouses on a nightshift". More generally, we shouldn't put people in a position where they have to accept abuse because the alternative is massive upheaval at best, homelessness at worst.
Basically I’m for any system that allows people to tell bad bosses to get fucked.
Also a good argument for universal health care.
But many would not need to live with the existential dread of perhaps ending up living under a bridge some day. Or skipping meals just to make rent.
Perhaps some would not need to give up on their lives and education by getting some minimum-wage job to help out their family or because of some early accident instead of going to college.
I am quite certain it could end up a net positive for society as a whole.
Reminds me of that quote:
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
And yes, it would shift the power dynamic in the workplace.
The whole point of UBI is that it keeps incentives for working, as most people - especially the most valuable employees - do want much more than a basic income, - and also supports partial employment (as opposed to things like means-tested welfare). What it would change the most is the situation regarding "shit jobs" which are both poorly paid and undesirable; and if the desperate workers get some alternatives, then these jobs would have to pay more, improve conditions, or not get done if they aren't that needed; and that seems a good effect to me.
All we can be certain of is that they don't want to spend most of their lives under a dictatorship, and that's fair imo.