https://graeber.social/@DGI/116038583824612166
i love david graeber
Remember when, during the pandemic, giving free school lunches to everyone in the US actually costed less than the usual system?
The US system is build around punishing the poor. In EU there is less punishment but it could still be better. I’d love a reasonable universal basic income proposal. I’m just too jaded to think it will ever happen, but I’d love it and 100% support it. Even if I don’t need it and my taxes would likely get higher.
Slightly unrelated: I love paying taxes and seeing how that improves the society as a whole. My taxes go to schools, hospitals, roads, social programs, supporting a wide variety of association… I am glad to pay for all of it.
In Canada the government was providing something like close to $3000 per person during the pandemic if they had lost their job or were unable to work due to covid on the condition you pay it back. many people ripped off the program, many people didn’t pay it back, government has kinda been mute on the whole thing since then. Guy I knew got it twice and could argue he didn’t need it (he was a POS). never paid it back, didn’t hear a peep from the government and still hasn’t. continues to pay his taxes annnnnnd nothing, no one has ever come calling to collect.
Another thing is during the pandemic we were putting homeless individuals in hotel rooms for months on end. we paid for it. we “suddenly” were able to find them housing. People were working from home remember that? nothing collapsed, companies continued doing well. Then suddenly the pandemic ends and now for whatever reason we no longer have housing for the homeless, we can no longer put them in those hotel rooms, and we’re forcing people to return to work. We no longer have money for anything?
it’s not that we didn’t learn anything, the people sure as fuck did learn something, It’s just that there’s more money to be made by the powers that be going back to the “old ways”.
I use to be what’s called a social liberal / fiscal conservative. In the early twenty teens my company was invited to work with what was then an unknown “chat bot” technology. It was plain to see where things were headed. Overnight I was a proponent of UBI. This is before Trump’s 2016 win. My friends and colleagues looked to me like I was crazy when I told them that within 10 years they’d be out of a job. I missed the mark there since majy of them turned into AI Bros, but I was close enough.
If we do not implement a safety net, REAL SOON, this entire society is going to collapse. There just won’t be enough means for people to survive. That’s not hyperbole.
UBI perpetuates suffering in periphery states. It’s for privileged core peoples to exploit the suffering of those slaving away overseas to provide their standard of living.
Capitalism is a zero sum game, for one to gain wealth it must be extracted from another and ultimately that burden falls to the periphery states.
UBI seeks to prop up late stage capitalism for as long as possible, it is not an ideal worth chasing over the proletariat owning the means of production outright.
Counterpoint: UBI is best used as one preliminary step amongst many on the way to abolishing capitalism.
It needs price controls in order to work properly. Otherwise the capitalist overlords just make everything more expensive by at least as much, eliminating the benefit completely.
That being said, having UBI+price control would
- raise the spending power of 90%+ of people,
- free dozens of millions from inescapable generational poverty,
- improve the mental as well as physical health of the population
- free up time and resources for people to pursue beneficial activities that they’d otherwise never be able to, potentially unlocking brilliant scientists, civil rights advocates, artists and so on that are currently stuck behind the Great Paywall of Capitalism.
All of this happening WITHOUT the coming of Ragnarok and a Bigmac costing a thousand dollars would be an EXTREMELY effective way to make sure that people not only know but FEEL that the capitalism they’ve been brought up to venerate or at least consider necessary as a lesser evil is in fact not the best or even a good system for anyone except for birth lottery winners, people with a talent for getting away with extreme exploitation and fraud, and especially people who won the birth lottery AND have that despicable talent such as Trump, Musk, and nefarious mastermind Jack McBrayer
Your answer isn’t to get rid of UBI, its to create it while also abolishing publicly traded (and eventually all private) companies, to be replaced with employee owned co-ops.
Capitalism is a zero sum game, for one to gain wealth it must be extracted from another
This is just not true. There are plenty of valid criticisms of capitalism, there’s no need to use false statements.
Its arguably true though. The general wealth the west experiences either comes or came at the expense of the global south. Its also like a main criticism of capitalism. Business owners, ceos, landlords, those with capital, literally generate more wealth at the expense of others.
Something socially productive like asking yourself why you are poor if there are plenty of resources for everyone in society? Not interested
I can’t tell if this is a really bad or really based take:
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poor people should blame themselves for their poverty
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poor people should be angry that they are made poor systematically
Cautious bet on number 2 from me.
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Being socially productive doesn’t mean economically productive
Maybe you’ll end up being a bigger member of your community if you weren’t slogging your guts out at walmart.
If this is sarcasm, hats off for pissing off so many people while being right. If it’s not, then… uh… I’ll refrain from speaking my mind so my comment doesn’t get deleted.
It is truly sad to live in a world where you don’t know if what I say is sarcasm.
On the other hand, specifying it is for cowards.
Trouble is too many people will say what you’ve said with a perfectly straight face. In the U.K. at the minute there’s people saying “vote Reform” to remove corruption and the establishment, ignoring that Reform are corrupt and very much part of the establishment.
