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Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

sociable.co

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Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#51

Post by slowmovintarget »

magnamerc wrote: post #38
tomschlick wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you really suggesting one man created it? No of course not. The company he built from the ground up did. Those workers are paid as per their employment contract. That's it. That doesn't give them rights to take pieces of ownership in that company.

At what point do people take ownership? What if governments as we know them today are replaced by trillion dollar AI/robotics corporations that litteraly own the means of production? We'll all get very cheap goods and services, but at what cost? You're now beholden to a megacorp that provides food, housing, entertainment, transportation, and employment. Sounds pretty dystopian to me.

Meaning is more important than means. Government by megacorp does sound horrific. Production by megacorp less so.

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#52

Post by peterangular »

insickness wrote: post #13

UBI will never replace welfare. People are not going to agree to cut off current welfare programs. And it will not stay at a $1000. It will go up. Not long after implementation, a politician will soon say that $1000 is not a livable wage and that it needs to be $2000. The next politician will say that it needs to be $5000. Basically this opens the door to socialism where we will just be haggling on the amount of weal…

Logical fallacies alert! "Slippery slope" leading right into a "hasty generalization" right there if I've ever seen one.

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#53

Post by tomschlick »

danaris wrote: post #47
tomschlick wrote: post #5

Nobody can ever answer the question of "What happens when someone blows their UBI and cant afford to eat?" Will we let them starve? You'd almost have to from the government side of things. How about 5 years after when someone introduces another entitlement program to help single mothers/seniors/etc and then criticizes everyone else as heartless for not supporting it? Will we just end up where we are now with even mor…

> Nobody can ever answer the question of "What happens when someone blows their UBI and cant afford to eat?" Will we let them starve? You'd almost have to from the government side of things. This seems to be a strawman to me. I've never seen it argued that UBI should come with any kind of requirement that it be spent in certain ways, or that further monitoring would be required to ensure that people didn't do stupid…

> This seems to be a strawman to me. I've never seen it argued that UBI should come with any kind of requirement that it be spent in certain ways, or that further monitoring would be required to ensure that people didn't do stupid things with it.

Given that UBI replaces most other social programs, you'd have to consider if you let people who waste their stipend go hungry or not. If a single mom waste's theirs, do we now introduce SNAP/WIC back into play to cover that? How about disabled people? In my mind all of these programs will slowly be reintroduced to cover edge cases and then we are back where we started.

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#54

Post by danaris »

tomschlick wrote: post #53
danaris wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody can ever answer the question of "What happens when someone blows their UBI and cant afford to eat?" Will we let them starve? You'd almost have to from the government side of things. This seems to be a strawman to me. I've never seen it argued that UBI should come with any kind of requirement that it be spent in certain ways, or that further monitoring would be required to ensure that people didn't do stupid…

> This seems to be a strawman to me. I've never seen it argued that UBI should come with any kind of requirement that it be spent in certain ways, or that further monitoring would be required to ensure that people didn't do stupid things with it. Given that UBI replaces most other social programs, you'd have to consider if you let people who waste their stipend go hungry or not. If a single mom waste's theirs, do we…

Do you consider that for people with full-time jobs now?

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#55

Post by undersuit »

tomschlick wrote: post #53
danaris wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody can ever answer the question of "What happens when someone blows their UBI and cant afford to eat?" Will we let them starve? You'd almost have to from the government side of things. This seems to be a strawman to me. I've never seen it argued that UBI should come with any kind of requirement that it be spent in certain ways, or that further monitoring would be required to ensure that people didn't do stupid…

> This seems to be a strawman to me. I've never seen it argued that UBI should come with any kind of requirement that it be spent in certain ways, or that further monitoring would be required to ensure that people didn't do stupid things with it. Given that UBI replaces most other social programs, you'd have to consider if you let people who waste their stipend go hungry or not. If a single mom waste's theirs, do we…

If a single mom wastes their SNAP/WIC now do we give them more SNAP/WIC?

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#56

Post by undersuit »

tomschlick wrote: post #49
undersuit wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why would you attack UBI over this issue?

Because I don't think UBI will help in the long term. It will lead to inflation of commodities (rent, food, cars, etc) and will lead to us having a bigger entitlement burden in the long run.

You really didn't answer my question though, and now we're on a different, tired series of questions that always get asked in regards to UBI.

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#57

Post by NeedMoreTea »

tomschlick wrote: post #43
mathgladiator wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way we value ownership may be something to think about. I'm very capitalistic, but I'm not happy. I'm reading "tribe: homecomings and belonging" (subtitle paraphrased due to poor memory). I am a millionaire and I am thinking about how to use it to build a community, and while I dont think we should use force to take wealth, I did believe we need a new leadership class to inspire and influence how ownership is sha…

I believe that in the context of small communities, programs for the less fortunate can work very well. Mostly because the resources are attached to something/someone they know and they would feel to social pressure not to abuse those resources. For instance, I'm not a religious person but that's one of the true virtues of a religious community. Giving to the less fortunate but you feel the pressure to do good with i…

Which is surely an argument in favour of UBI? No tragedy of the commons, or scope to "abuse" it - you exist, you get the UBI. Should work at any scale, no? No need to claim insurance or welfare if shit happens - that safety net stays. A baseline below which it's not possible to sink. Which was the original intent behind welfare etc.

The possibility of having small communities joining in once again, in addition would be great. That would require unwinding much of the neoliberal Thatcher/Reagan view of things though. Community or collective bad, "there's no such thing as society" as a matter of dogma.

We've all been made economic individuals, everything should be paid for individually, community and cooperation is old tech to be eliminated. No wonder there's a crisis of loneliness.

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#58

Post by peterangular »

maxxxxx wrote: post #20
insickness wrote: post #13

UBI will never replace welfare. People are not going to agree to cut off current welfare programs. And it will not stay at a $1000. It will go up. Not long after implementation, a politician will soon say that $1000 is not a livable wage and that it needs to be $2000. The next politician will say that it needs to be $5000. Basically this opens the door to socialism where we will just be haggling on the amount of weal…

All Western countries (including the US) do some kind of wealth distribution and it clearly works. Societies without any form of wealth distribution don't work. Or do you have an example? I can't think of any.

It's a pretty horrible argument unless they come back through to actually explain what they mean.

> Wealth redistribution doesn't work and never has.

Is a HUGE sweeping generalization that has literally zero substance in a discussion - and technically it's false off-the-bat because I'm certain almost anyone can think of at least ONE example where the "redistribution of wealth" has worked to lessen human suffering. Also, don't let someone come through here and try to redefine what they meant by those words - they mean that they don't believe in wealth re-distribution plain and simple.

When you see binary arguments like that it's a flag to run for the hills.

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#59

Post by luckylion »

Nasrudith wrote: post #41
40acres wrote: post #32

UBI is not politically feasible in America, realistically I can only see it working in a very homogeneous country (religious, ethnic, language, etc.). Those who want UBI in America should redirect their focus on an expansion of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits. I think eliminating the phase in period of EITC and increasing the benefits (by absorbing other forms of welfare) is the way to go.

I hear this suggested often - why would homogeneity make a difference? Being too stupid bigotted to benefit yourself if it might help "the other"?

> why would homogeneity make a difference?

Two things I can think of off the top of my head.

People more easily help people that are similar to themselves, simply because they can easily see themselves in their shoes.

You'd have similar productivity throughout the population, i.e. you won't have some distinct part of the population do most of the work while other distinct parts of the population are primarily taking but not contributing. Having cemented net transfers where, say, protestants to all of the work and catholics sit around collecting welfare will make for unhappy protestants (and you need those to be happy, because they do the work).

Re: Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’

#60

Post by [deleted] »

peterangular wrote: post #58
maxxxxx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Western countries (including the US) do some kind of wealth distribution and it clearly works. Societies without any form of wealth distribution don't work. Or do you have an example? I can't think of any.

It's a pretty horrible argument unless they come back through to actually explain what they mean. > Wealth redistribution doesn't work and never has. Is a HUGE sweeping generalization that has literally zero substance in a discussion - and technically it's false off-the-bat because I'm certain almost anyone can think of at least ONE example where the "redistribution of wealth" has worked to lessen human suffering. Al…

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