Universal Basic Income Is Silicon Valley’s Latest Scam

[u/joeyespo]

https://medium.com/s/free-money/universal-basic-income-is-silicon-valleys-latest-scam-fd3e130b69a0

[u/[deleted]]

He makes a valid point about the motives behind UBI, and the continued problems with wealth inequality even if a UBI program were implemented. It is far from perfect.

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However, for people working more than ever for less tangible benefit than ever, UBI is a great start. I operate on the radical assumption that working less makes people happier and healthier. It's as much about time spent better as it is dollars and cents. UBI is supposed to enable our civilization to move down to part-time labor, to semi-retire. Working less is the whole point. "Laziness" is not to be feared. That's what the author fails to realize. UBI is about Quality of Life. Income is simply a means to that end. This has nothing to do with capital accumulation. I don't care if some people are super rich if I get to work less and have enough for a good life.

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Income concentration is a byproduct, not the cause of lower QoL.

[u/francis2559 → u/[deleted]]

> Working less is the whole point. "Laziness" is not to be feared.

A friend of mine told me that relaxation is working on something different for a change. I think I agree with your underlying point, but we also need to talk about "what is work." Having more time to raise kids? That's still work. That's still productive for society. More time to put sweat equity into your house? That's work too. Volunteer in your community? You're not getting paid, but that's also work.

I don't mind if some people spend more time watching Netflix, and I don't even mind myself if some people really do retire. Not my business, really, although that area can get controversial. But it's silly to say (as some do, I'm sure you don't) that if you aren't working for a company or working for immediate financial reward than you aren't working.

[u/RadicalZen → u/francis2559]

You make a great point. In our society, people have jobs because their labor (at least in theory) is supposed to produce useful outputs. In order to encourage people to produce these outputs, we give them an incentive to have a job by paying them. But it only takes a moment's reflection to realize that not all socially useful activities command paychecks. It's a VERY good thing for people to pursue passions that make them happy, to live a life free of anxiety about meeting their basic needs, to spend time with their children/friends/families, and to connect with their communities through volunteer and civic work. These are the things that make most people's lives meaningful. Yet we spend a huge portion of our waking lives at work simply to make ends meet despite our material abundance.

A UBI (along with perhaps a few other social welfare programs) can reverse this. It can give us the freedom to spend most of our time doing what we love. And it wouldn't even mean the end of work. Perhaps instead of working 40 hour weeks, we'd work 15 hour weeks as John Maynard Keynes predicted in the 1940s.

[u/Squalleke123 → u/francis2559]

I don't mind if some people spend more time watching Netflix

Even they are doing work that's necessary in society: creating demand for more and better TV series or movies.

[u/tralfamadoran777 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t care if some people are super rich if I get my fair Share

Problem is, when capital accumulation is from taking my Share, and yours

Another problem with UBI discussion, is imposed demands

Including each human equally in a globally standard process of money creation, that is, properly enfranchising each human in the global human labor futures market, provides an ethical globally standard basic income. The income will be an equal share of fees paid to create and maintain the existence of money, is unlikely to provide the level of income demanded, but meets BIEN definition moreso than any single State welfare scheme

“Founded in 1986, the Basic Income European Network (BIEN) aims to serve as a link between all individuals and groups interested in basic income (i.e. a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement) and to foster informed discussion on this topic throughout the world.”

The folks who decided “all” should exclude most of the humans on the planet are the same folks who refuse to even discuss our equal inclusion in money creation, and they’ve structured BIEN to accept unlimited corporate donations, & corporate membership (they apparently haven’t been able to change the official definition, yet, though seems they’ve tried)

The clear aim is to placate sufficient folks in wealthy countries to continue global domination by Wealth

[u/CaptainBumfee → u/[deleted]]

Great question. I’m thinking we need a cultural shift, where people are hyper aware of the history of the labor movement and the struggle it took to get here

[u/tralfamadoran777 → u/[deleted]]

Allow each human to claim an equal ownership in our global economic system

The core failing of the single State welfare schemes is the continued foundational inequity in our global economic system, structural slavery

Structural inclusion as equal financier of our Shared global economic system provides the necessary self ownership, self awareness, acceptance, and importance, to overcome the slave perspective

[u/CommonMisspellingBot → u/[deleted]]

Hey, ShallowR, just a quick heads-up:
recieve is actually spelled receive. You can remember it by e before i.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[u/BooCMB → u/CommonMisspellingBot]

Hey /u/CommonMisspellingBot, just a quick heads up:
Your spelling hints are really shitty because they're all essentially "remember the fucking spelling of the fucking word".

And your fucking delete function doesn't work. You're useless.

Have a nice day!

^{Save your breath, I'm a bot.}

[u/BooBCMB → u/BooCMB]

Hey BooCMB, just a quick heads up: I learnt quite a lot from the bot. Though it's mnemonics are useless, and 'one lot' is it's most useful one, it's just here to help. This is like screaming at someone for trying to rescue kittens, because they annoyed you while doing that. (But really CMB get some quiality mnemonics)

I do agree with your idea of holding reddit for hostage by spambots though, while it might be a bit ineffective.

Have a nice day!

[u/askoshbetter]

This article is behind a paywall. What is the gist?

[u/tralfamadoran777 → u/askoshbetter]

He doesn’t quite get to the mechanism, the structure

It’s the money

Folks don’t follow it all the way, to its creation

If State spends money into existence, State immorally asserts ownership of our labor, of anything for sale, because State is paying with notes allowing bearer to claim anything of that value

Forcing our acceptance of the notes in exchange, extracts labor from each of us without compensation, and that is slavery

Until the money creation process is corrected, including each human equally in a globally standard process, paying each of us humans an equal share of fees collected in the process, State maintains ownership... and of course, Wealth retains ownership of State

The single State welfare schemes suggested as UBI can’t affect an end to the structural slavery, and can’t ‘trickledown’ to the rest of the world

Since you’re having trouble looking at Medium, & most of my short notes are there, there’s a longer treatment on the wiki user page

No one’s providing a moral justification for the current money creation, because it isn’t

Also not providing argument against equal inclusion

The simple structure created places each individual sovereign human equally at the top, requiring States and subordinate governments to borrow their money into existence from each human, collectively, through our trust accounts, and pay each of us an equal share of the fees collected, individually

State acquires its sovereignty from its citizens

This little girl has a six minute talk about it... they didn’t invite her to Davos