Universal Basic Income Is Silicon Valley’s Latest Scam

He's not wrong.

But UBI isn't a SV invention, far from it. Applied to SV, it does serve to continue concentrating the wealth. There was an interesting author on KQED forum a day or 2 ago who wrote a book about our betters keeping us down in just this way. I found that guy a bit ridiculous but again, not wrong.

  When people eventually become too poor to 
  continue working as drivers or paying for 
  rides, UBI supplies the required cash infusion 
  for the business to keep operating.

So, that's the big problem? It's just some calculated ploy to subsidize small time freelancers within a side hustle economy?

The rest of the article is simply philosophical grandstanding about how UBI is really a figurative IV drip in the ICU being a secret plot by hospitals in order to keep people as patients forever.

I don't implicitly trust governments or corporations. The concept of an aggressive company like Uber, an organization that analyzed greyballing their data to subvert lawful behavior, is certainly one to operate their users exploitatively.

But, a supplemental pay check that means the difference between not eating plus getting evicted, contrasted against just hanging out and safely waiting for business to pick up again, in between seasonal dry spells, available to anyone, especially those who normally operate odd jobs as a career, this isn't some sinister trojan horse to lock people into a no-options future of scooter charging.

When people are facing eviction and starvation, and the very cold reality of getting locked into living on the streets, homeless, there are bigger problems at large, and worth fixing.

Universal Basic Income can change the world, but it's not a siren song assuredly leading to total powerlessness. It can't protect people from their own bad decisions. It is probable that both sides might employ behaviors that take advantage and game the system. But that doesn't mean this won't do a lot of good, and solve real problems for a lot of people who need the help.

Means change, but the ends remain the same.

> How does UBI lead to capital accumulating at the top?

It all depends on how you fund the UBI from different households (and their holding-companies, trusts, offshore bank accounts, etc.) versus how well each of those groups can recapture it from the economic engine.

There are probably scenarios where the UBI could be used to cause a net-benefit to the top 1%, based on net-losses among the 90-99th percentiles. That the bottom 90% see a minor benefit would just a side-effect.

Given that the author is directing their outrage at public companies (Uber, FB, Amazon), what's to stop UBI recipients from buying shares of those companies to effect the same thing? Employees (though not contractors) already get equity as well. If control is the issue, then something akin to Elizabeth Warren's plan of an employee-representative board member is an equally useful tool, and a much less heavy-handed one.