Also does anyone have a way to turn threads into something I can download, so they don't get deleted?
Isnt this just buying off the working class so capitalists and their politicians can do whatever they want? Even in global south, isnt this what reactionary dictstorships do with oil profits, just more humane?
Isnt this just buying off the working class so capitalists and their politicians can do whatever they want?
Yes.
No. It's the opposite. It's buying off the bosses.
It's making the taxpayer support employed people so their boss doesn't have to, instead of using welfare to support only unemployed people.
threadreaderapp. But to the point UBI is bullshit it's socdem distribution of spoils among those that benefit from colonialism.
Fuck UBI. This is bad.
lmao who upvoted this post?
- Profits of businesses increased 52% despite the higher costs of labor, because they had so many more customers.
Honestly this should have been your first red flag.
Look we're all communists or anarchists here, so sure the abolition of the capitalist system is the end-goal, but operating within the paramtres of the system is sadly all that is possible for most people - There is no large scale popular uprising coming in the imperial core. At least a UBI works against starvation and homelessness.
It works to do what?
Preserve the capitalist mode of production by placating some workers within specific national boundaries?
look I get where you are coming from but it's not "good" or any sort of solution to any of the contradictions of capitalism.
It works to alleviate homelessness and starvation within the country, whilst working within the capitalist imperialist system that will be the downfall of us all if we do nothing about it.
I think capitalism is bad, but within that badness, UBI seems - based on the data and research available - to be a tool that makes it less bad for those existing within it.Is that something worth fighting for? It isn't ever going to happen and it is a distraction from actual class struggle.
Keep your eye on the ball comrade.
I dunno, maybe? I don't know what path forward will bring about the change needed, and maybe it's fine to just try to improve things where you believe they can be improved until then
Yes and that is what I am helping work toward through Chunka Luta.
UBI is not our goal. I have to reiterate: Keep your eye on the ball.
I did not say you weren't working towards it?
I feel like a broken record: I dunno, maybe? I don't know what path forward will bring about the change needed, and maybe it's fine to just try to improve things where you believe they can be improved until then. I think it might be feasible to implement UBI, since it has already been implemented in many trial runs, and labour movements have won concessions many times before.I've tried occupying, fighting, blockading, sabotaging and organizing and none of it feels like it has mattered in any way. Maybe this will. I don't know. Maybe.
The same way we've seen other concessions become implemented. The same way universal healthcare, public retirement funds, universal education, student-wages, maternity leave, paid vacations, free public infrastructure, public housing and the like has become implemented before.
These came by as a result of strong labour movements and a general mass movement working towards getting specific goals implemented. These movements eventually forcing the capitalists hand.
I don't think these mass movements formed around a core ideology generally - at least not as far as I can tell from the examples I can think of (for example the soviets' call for "peace, bread and land" the cuban revolutionaries focus on working the local community, the maoists focus on helping the locals as well).
The movements were formed by an ideological core group. That core group gained support from the masses by way of working towards specific goals that alleviated suffering and improved conditions. Other stuff came after.
That's a very condensed walkthru of my general understanding of historical labour movements and then a sidetrack into revolutionairy movements because I can't avoid getting sidetracked. It's very reductive and lacking in many areas, and there are many other ways of analysing these events, I know.Maybe UBI can be such a cause that helps gain mass support. Maybe it can't, I don't know. Maybe it's just a singular concession that cannot be a part of a greater movement, but then that concession still seems to be a thing that would make life better for people within the system. Maybe it's a pipe dream, I don't know, we're talking hypotheticals.
Yes all of those things exist, otherwise they would have been bad examples.
What do you define by "worked"?
It works to alleviate homelessness and starvation within the country, whilst working within the capitalist imperialist system that will be the downfall of us all if we do nothing about it. I think capitalism is bad, but within that badness, UBI seems - based on the data and research available - to be a tool that makes it less bad for those existing within it.
This is welfare. This is what welfare does.
Most red support the welfare state under capitalism, as espoused by Clement Attlee, Jeremy Corbyn, etc.
Why should we persuaded to suddenly extend it to employed people?
That's all UBI people want to do when you strip away the fancy terminology and American Thought: give people with jobs the dole.
What's the argument in favour of giving people with jobs the dole?
The argument for it is the results as presented in those 91 research articles i linked.
If you wanna argue with someone about uni, argue with the dude that compiled those articles, I'm barely thru the first few of them.A pilot study where a group of people are given money tells us nothing about the effects on the economy of UBI. How will it increase tax? How will salaries adjust?
Looking at the 91 research articles, half of them don't even claim to be about UBI. They don't mention UBI. They are studies on direct cash transfers which is a different thing.
Okay? I don't really understand why you're trying to argue with me as if I'm some sort of arch-ubi advocate.
Then why are you trying to start an argument, instead of reading the research articles?
UBI is the neoliberalisation of welfare.
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Take the weekly amount of money you get on the dole. Let's say it's 90, for the sake of the example.
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Say minimum wage is 200 a week.
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That means working instead of relaxing requires 110 extra to motivate the worker
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With normal welfare, the employer must pay the 200. With UBI the employer only has to pay 110, and the taxpayer via UBI pays the other 90
It's a transfer of trillions from the taxpayer to subsidise scabby employers.
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Are you arguing that distributing more money among Kenyan villagers is "distribution of spoils among those that benefit from colonialism"? Like, you see Kenyan villagers as the beneficiaries of colonialism?
No, I am arguing that it is a pipedream that will never happen without revolutionary class struggle that renders the concept moot.
UBI is a reformist distraction
I am honestly surprised to see anyone here give any credence to UBI.
I don't think ubi under capitalism is any type of solution and I agree with you it's a distraction. But I think ubi is good outside of capitalism or at least the idea of everyone's basic needs being met
I'm not sure what you're asking but I pretty much agree with you. Ubi is like a tool and can be used for good.
I'd feel like a goof for copy-pasting a comment that I've written previously but here's my fairly comprehensive criticisms of a UBI.
I'm not entirely opposed to an UBI but I am extremely skeptical and I think it's a political dead-end (and that's without even mentioning how it could very well be used by sheepdog politicians to coax people into voting for them like AOC does with stuff like universal healthcare.)
Also does anyone have a way to turn threads into something I can download, so they don't get deleted?
Thread Reader App used to be able to do this but the website is behind a paywall now although it seems that you can still ping the bot if you have twitter so idk if that's an option.
Thank you for your contribution and thank you for not being immediately condescending or calling me a lib for sharing a long list of research articles.
I think it's really important to extend a charitable attitude towards comrades and that we should all remember that if our communities have a rigorous culture of critique then it means that we're going to be on the receiving end of it at some point, eventually, and that it's going to be better for everyone—ourselves included—if we don't engage in shit-flinging internally.
Externally, go ham. (I usually give libs one or two chances before I get ruthless with them, unless I think they just need a little nudge to radicalise.)
But internally, I think it's of crucial importance that whatever community you're a part of has a really even-handed approach to criticism in order to have strong, healthy community with any chance at longevity. If we look at Mao's short piece Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?:
Where do correct ideas come from?
Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice, and from it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment. It is man’s social being that determines his thinking. Once the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class are grasped by the masses, these ideas turn into a material force which changes society and changes the world. In their social practice, men engage in various kinds of struggle and gain rich experience, both from their successes and from their failures.
And think about that last bit especially—[people] engage in various kinds of struggle and gain rich experience, both from their successes and from their failures—then we need to cultivate a culture where we embrace gaining rich experience from our failures especially and where we encourage it in others. Shitting on people isn't the right way of achieving that goal.
And I'm saying this in full knowledge of the fact that I could just as easily be wrong on this topic btw, not to tell you in some condescending way that you're wrong but we should be nice to you regardless; I've had positions that I've felt more certain about which have turned out to be incorrect in the past.
It's about a ruthless criticism of all that exists, not about being a ruthless jerk to all who exist.
Yeah sorry I came off a bit harsh. I guess all the fucking yang gangers I had to deal with in 2020 poisoned the well for me on that one.
Thank you. It wasn't really you however, I felt like you were completely nice and good about out discussion. And I get the opposition because of Yang. UBI has been reduced to utopian drivel
I've never heard an explanation for how UBI isn't just a handout to landlords & other owners of real estate. Those costs aren't counted in inflation metrics btw. We've turned a necessity of life into an investment vehicle and it has to generate returns by squeezing people as much as possible. UBI gives it more room to do that. Even if UBI is implemented you think you'll be able to index it to real estate returns??? Even indexing it to inflation sans real estate is unlikely. Minimum wage isn't indexed to anything at all.
ubi would be fine enough if we did some maoism first, but the suck dems and whoever else proposes it won't even call for rent freezes
Fair question! The thread which cites 91 studies does touch on that I'm sure. I'm only just skimming it right now.
ITT: a bunch of liberals don't understand how to not be distracted by obvious liberal bullshit while comrade Nako desperately tries to put some sense into their heads.
Some of you need to actual unironic re-education for real. UBI won't solve any underlying issue and the amount of organization and effort it would take to achieve is better spent on real communist organizing to destroy the imperialist core. This is a false god, do not worship it. The goal is wealth redistribution to the proletariat, not a fucking sucdem handout.
Your response strikes me as odd and needlessly rude and hostile. I have answered and argued for my point of view in this very thread, but you just call me a liberal and then repeat arguments I have already answered. You are also claiming things that I have not said. Why this hostility?
UBI won't solve any underlying issue
Where have I said that UBI will fix the underlying issue? I take it that you mean the issue is capitalism.
better spent on real communist organizing
Which would be what according to you? Because in my personal experience, it is much easier to organize people around a cause rather than a vague endgoal of revolution.
I remember some Charles Goodhart + Michael Hudson paper people got mad about went into this but I never got around to reading it since I'm behind on like 7 topics at once
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/some-ways-introduce-modern-debt-jubilee
@Egon@hexbear.net To save twitter threads, I just put https://threadreaderapp.com pages into https://web.archive.org/save/
