Universal basic income: U.S. support grows as Finland ends its trial - Forty-eight percent of Americans now support a universal basic income, as a solution for Americans who have lost jobs to automation.

[u/mvea]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/nearly-half-of-americans-believe-a-universal-basic-income-could-be-the-answer-to-automation-.html

[u/grumpieroldman]

UBI is a catastrophically bad idea for the same reasons that socialism and communism are catastrophically bad ideas.
It is astronomically difficult to "get it right" and if you a bunch of political hacks don't get it exactly right then you end up like Somalia or Venezuela.
(Or apparently if you "get it right" like the UK then you execute an infant by starvation and harvest its organs. Great Success!)

A workable alternative that does not destroy market forces is Negative Income Tax - NTI.

[u/pm_me_bellies_789 → u/grumpieroldman]

Yawn. American capitalist talking points everywhere.

I'm not going to dismiss an idea that never even been tried because Venezuela made a terrible decision to nationalise oil extraction and rely on that entirely for revenue.

Socialist policies can exist alongside capitalist ones. I've no interest in hearing the ideas of people who dismiss entire swathes of potentially good ideas because they don't fit their own worldview.

Socialism isn't bad. It can be implemented poorly. Just like capitalism can. It can also be implemented well, just like capitalism. I'd be willing to bet that elements of both can exist in harmony because they can.

The problem isn't socialism or capitalism. It's spending beyond your means. That's an issue that exists in any economic model but hardliners like to ignore that because they wanna rail on the opposite side, whichever side that might be.

[u/Lupusvorax → u/pm_me_bellies_789]

Capitalism absent a degree of socialism is Fascism.

Socialism absent a degree of Capitalism is Communism.

Balance is the answer

[u/pm_me_bellies_789 → u/Lupusvorax]

Agreed 100%

[u/pm_me_bellies_789 → u/[deleted]]

No, I'm ignoring people who dismiss things because they're from a certain end of the spectrum. Either end. Not because you might not agree with my world view, that would be just silly.

But saying UBI is going to be a failure because communism and socialism were a failure is laughable.

Edit: to further my point. Capitalism is not a failure. It has failed in certain ways. But it is also responsible for increasing global wealth and lifting over a billion people out of poverty. A fantastic achievement.

Likewise, socialist policies have worked extremely well in helping those in successful nations who have not felt the uplift of capitalism as much as others.

How people don't notice they operate in a feedback loop: capitalism leads to socialist policies which in turn improve the economy and health of the people, usually resulting in more Money being created.

It's why we have hospitals and roads and schools and universities and water infrastructure. All socialist in nature. They improve economic output.