Every single study on UBI finds that it is a good idea that benefits both the recipients and society as a whole, but because it contradicts the dominant ideology it can't be allowed to happen.
How can a society built on capital work towards the betterment of society rather than the accretion of capital?
Stop measuring people's networth. Start measuring their societal value.
I've yet to see a study at a scale large enough to impact the local economy. Will the results hold when everyone gets monthly cash payments, or will rent go through the roof and that's about it?
solution: take control of renting rates at the least
or just be smart and get rid of landlords all together
Kind of a weird argument, isn't it? If we did the opposite instead, it's not as if you'd expect rents to fall -- on the contrary, rent would go up in response to the added financial burden on landlords. Setting that hypothetical aside, wouldn't a generalized inflation of rents be an acceptable tradeoff for reducing homelessness and untethering the 50+% of young adults who still live with their parents to move and work in more economically efficient environments?
While I actually consider multi-generational housing a good thing, let's ignore that since the reason people aren't moving out is financial and not social.
The question is whether UBI is the best way to solve that problem (and others) and I have yet to see data that can be reasonably said to actually be universal for a region. The closest thing I know of is Alaska, and their oil payments are too small and their economy too remote to say much about larger payments in a larger economy.
To me, because money has a social and psychological value to it, what works on an individual level has no guarantee to transfer to a societal level. I would be very interested to see UBI practiced on an entire economic zone, but good luck getting anyone to volunteer.
That's about it. Why would anyone work for $20k/yr when they could get $12k for free? They wouldn't. So those jobs would bump to $30k+, and a domino affect would occur. Nothing would be achieved other than the devaluing of the American dollar, which would lead to a loss of jobs, increased poverty, and guess what else - increased homelessness.
Similar experiments in Vancouver: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/30/canada-study-homeless-money-spending
Ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/basic-income-mcmaster-report-1.5485729
Turns out, socialism ain't that bad eh?
UBI is socialism? Without any price caps on goods and services it just gives capitalists another excuse to raise prices.
That's not true. You're thinking of social programs. Socialism is when workers own the means of production.
If this was socialism, America would have already done a military coup in Denver.
Socialism, in an extreme simplification, is a mode of political and economic organisation in which the workers own the means of production, and receive the full value of their labour. While social welfare programs are often attached to that, they are not socialism in and of themselves, nor are they a prerequisite to socialism (but it is nice to have).
Inherently, the funding of social programs must be derived by taking value away from capital and redistributing it to the public. In general, social programs might not be socialist, but in the particular case of UBI it's literally a direct redistribution of (some) surplus value from capital accumulators to society. Just like how the term "capitalism" today doesn't describe a perfectly capitalist economy, the term "socialism" has been co-opted to refer more to progress towards socialism... In that regard, I think UBI programs are distinct from typical social programs (i.e. expanding universal healthcare further does not make a society socialist, nor does improving support for homelessness) in that they are direct progress towards socialism (i.e. expanding UBI further literally redistributes value entirely from capital to society and basically achieves the goals of social ownership).
Y'know what? That's fair.
My understanding has been that the entire point of a progressive tax system is to sap money from the wealthy and redistribute it towards the public good. Whether that system works is debatable, sure.
Point being, actual UBI would require significant tax hikes and closing of tax loopholes which predominantly target the wealthy. While that may lead to capital flight, it's not a bad thing. As a whole, UBI wouldn't be a small step but a massive stride towards achieving socialism.
I'm totally in favor of UBI it just needs to come with rent control, food price controls, healthcare, etc. And it needs to not be paid for by taxing the working class
UBIs can be a good part of socialism, but not necessarily an essentialist value of it, though it's not as well-utilized under capitalism...
If Feudalism means the rule of Feudal lords, by ownership of the land and thus crop rents, and capitalism means the rule of capitalists, by ownership of capital and thus profit
Then with socialism, it's the rule of society, by communal ownership (state or not) of our industry towards societal goods, such as food, shelter, etc. and avoid the crises that come with it
If you reform the system without changing its system, it will rhyme up its mistakes all over again (do the same action but with worse effect to society)
Btw though: don't most of the ideal Socdem countries, whom you call socialist, in the West rely on exploitative unequal "exchange" , and the Socdem countries of the Global South are slandered and sanctioned, the most extreme example being Venezuela?
That's a fair point, but I'd like to clarify that I'm not calling socdem countries socialist. I think there's a difference between socdem policy and UBI in terms of their impacts on the economy, on the social contract, and on politics.
Oh ok... I think the main pt is that UBI and Socdem policies are similar in that, while not inherent in Socialism, they would be better executed under it, as a policy...
Yep, I see your point. UBI is inherently inefficient in a capitalist system, and so the comparison isn't really fair.
That isnt socialism, the proletariat doesn't control the means of production.
Love too go down to the government store and order an extra large socialism
Yh a lot of mfers on this site need to actually read some theory.
Rent is only high because of artificial scarcity of real estate. The scarcity only exists because building new housing is decided neither by supply and demand nor central government planning, but by the people who accumulate more capital if housing isn't built.
: "Did you just suggest walkable communities with plenty of brownstone townhouses? Whoa WTF I love regulations now!"
OK, so you're telling me that giving money to people who need it, is better than giving it to rich people?
I am Wage Slaves inner shocked pikachu. Same thing, just more sarcastic and massive eye brows.
To be clear here, while they advocate for UBI this isn't really a study on the topic as much as it is on direct cash payments to the homeless. Which has been supported by tons of different research in Canada, London, so many places I can't even remember them all.
I'd love to show this to people who say "but lazy people will be getting paid for nothing" or "competition is human nature" that capitalists made the fuck up, but it'll probably go over their heads, or they'll conveniently say that the test was not done properly
The Maoist uprising against the landlords was the most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, leading to almost totally equal redistribution of the land amongst the peasantry.
We tried ubi during lock downs Here and it not only failed catastrophically but our government had to give up on billions of dollars people aren’t eligible for it caused catastrophic nearly unrecoverable inflation and people are now walking away from their mortgages that they can no longer afford
You dropped these (,,,....)
But in all seriousness, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
The government giving out money to people so that they could stay housed/fed did not cause record inflation. The capitalists massively hiked prices, then said that inflation made them do it. They then declared record profits afterwards. Capitalists scooped up all that money with ease. They then did their little song and dance of, "We're all in this together. We're just widdle beans trying to survive like you."
If the government doing stuff for people over a 2 year period causes massive amounts of inflation, wouldn't decades of handouts to capitalists cause record hyper-inflation? Inflation doesn't happen because the government does stuff. Inflation happens because capitalists will pounce on any opportunity to eek more money out of you, then blame you for having too much money.
Recent inflation was actually caused by lending rates dropping to zero, investments being made on that basis and now that lending rates are normalized costs are increasing, and now prices are increasing to maintain profits.
what. Social programs are not socialism
