UBI works too : memes

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

UBI is kind of cool but it has some massive flaws. For example: Landlords and groceries can just raise prices to bring the cost of living up and since there are no rent/price controls (because "that would be communism") we'll be right back to where we started. What you want is Universal Basic Services. Anything you need to live is free. Literally impossible for anyone to game that system and equally impossible for people to slip through the gaps, but it's also never going to happen because "that would be communism"

So yeah this is why capitalism has go to, because any attempt at actually making a just and fair society will be dismissed as "being communism"

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 63 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Landlords and groceries can just raise prices to bring the cost of living up

Sigh. People make this braindead argument every single time this subject comes up. No they can't. Markets do not work that way. It's literally just a repackaged argument against minimum wage and it has been thoroughly debunked in that context.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Unless you live in a city with rent stabilization, yes landlords will do that. Groceries will likely not have that problem, because of other market conditions. The first to increase their rents will be luxury apartments. Once the Internet is done laughing their asses off about $5000 rent, other landlords will use realpage to gauge the market and increase in tandem. Landlords literally do not care if their property is occupied, because the money is in the land and we've commoditized housing.

[–] F_this_stuff@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Don't try to mischaracterize me. For UBI to work, we need national rent stabilization and significant efforts to build non-market housing across the nation. I'm not against UBI, but it can't just be added without other changes.

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[–] trailing9@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Have you seen how housing prices rose when interest rates were low? Markets work that way because consumers outcompete each other, at least in the housing market. You need a surplus of supply, like the corn market, to keep costs low.

Like @espi wrote, you need fierce competition in all markets.

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

It becomes more and more meaningless when you start to talk about any form of regulation or extension of basic rights. Plenty of countries are coming around to the idea that housing is a basic right. It's hard to raise prices when your competition is literally free. UBI + market regulations + basic human rights are all required. No solution exists in a vacuum and anyone who considers it as such is missing the point

[–] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We literally just witnessed this with COVID shutdown. Im not sure why you think people getting handed money will not increase pricing as that is usually how things work.

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[–] Johanno@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

So you want to tell me that companies aren't buying out competition and with a monopoly they then rise prises as they want?

Explain to me how markets work if the only company selling or renting houses is not lowering their price when demand lowers? Or when they intentionally are not renting flats in order to keep demand high?

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[–] Holzkohlen@feddit.de 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We should get rid of landlords either way of course. Don't even need UBI for that. Also get rid of billionaires.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The ideas of „you can only own a building you live in“ and „companies can’t own residential buildings“ keep popping up in my head. Any reason that can’t be the solution?

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Any reason that can’t be the solution?

Capitalist brainwashing and status quo warriors?

[–] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

The fact that if you need to rent you can't because who do you rent from and where do they move to?

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[–] trailing9@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want to rent, who owns those buildings? One person who lives there?

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[–] Espi@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

UBI is a way to make capitalism more fair. One important fact about capitalism that seemingly everyone forgot is that competition is a requirement for it to work.

If there is fierce competition in all markets, even if everyone is getting UBI, price hikes are impossible.

[–] samson@aussie.zone 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's a fantasy though. An extremely competitive market would be nice, but in reality it would be a race to the bottom and those who started with more cash would win out, buy up or starve the competition and monopolise, giving them the extra space to be lazy and pass on profits to their shareholders, who dictate increased prices to increase their margins.

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[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Landlords and groceries can just raise prices to bring the cost of living up

They already can, and do. If they do it too much, people leave that area. With a UBI, there's nothing that says you have to live in a big city, it would be easier to move to bfe, where it's always going to be cheaper. It's not ideal of course to uproot and leave, but it's possible, and it's that possibility that keeps prices somewhat under control.

[–] akariii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

unless you have conditions that require you to have quick access to hospital, or doesn't allow you to work in physically intensive labor like farms, or require certain infrastructure like elevators and access to wheelchairs, etc. i can see that working for some people, but not for everyone. and the people that would be left behind could be dramatically affected by this situation

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[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For the very problems you stated, I'm in favor of UBI. Capital would take some time to adjust to the new system and for a moment, misery would be alleviated for a metric shitload of people. When it's ripped from our hands by greedy capitalists, it could act as a unifying, radicalizing force and bring us closer to a revolution. There's a loooot more to it than my few sentences. But a UBI given to everyone with no means testing would be an objectively good thing. And its a bit like Pandora's box. Once it's here, you can't take it away without serious social ramifications. I'll leave a couple of articles that touch on this because it's something the left ought to be taking more seriously, however I haven't had a chance to read the two of them all the way through yet. I'm at work and things just got busy but here ya go one, two

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I like the idea of UBI too. I hope it happens and that we transition into a UBS model once its success is shown to the world. That being said it's important to front that with me not being in support of the neofeudal UBI that silicon valley techbros push for. That would be a disaster.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Hard agree on all points. It's a bit of a bummer that Andrew yang of all people was the one to start the national conversation about UBI because his whole deal just pollutes the discussion from the jump

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[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

I felt like it should be paired with government contracts for something akin to a private dorm room (room, cafeteria with meal plan, laundry, computer lab, wifi, etc.) that negotiates a price that is then what the ubi is pegged at. Folks are guaranteed being able to have at least that option or can utilize it for something else.

[–] bernieecclestoned@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Anything you need to live is free. Literally impossible for anyone to game that system

Let me introduce you to government cntracts

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[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Norway doesn't have a minimum wage because the unions don't want one. They believe having a set minimum wage sets a low anchor for negotiating, and that they can negotiate higher wages without one.

Select industries do have a minimum wage for their specific field, though. And there's a legal minimum you must pay teens working in summer internships, because they're not unionized and often get lowballed.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is probably gonna bite them in a long run when neoliberalism will chew through union power.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

You can't really compare US and Norwegian unions apples to apples. They don't work the same way. In Norway they're way more mainstream, work closer with the government, and they don't employ people. There are no "union shops", and no vote to join a union. You just join one while employed directly with your employer.

You can still negotiate your own compensation, but the union may also negotiate raises for the entire workplace separately (including for non-members). In a way you could say the union negotiates a workplace-specific minimum wage.

The risk of union workers getting fired and replaced with scabs is far less in Norway, because there is much stronger worker protection. These protections apply to everyone, not just the unionized workers, but they were achieved due to unions, years ago.

I don't think you necessarily can draw any conclusions about strategy for Norwegian unions based on experience with US unions, or vice versa. They're just different beasts.

Note: Apologies if some of this is mildly incorrect, I have not been directly involved with union work in either country, and so I only have a high-level view of it all. Someone more experienced should be able to give more detailed information about union strategy in either country.

[–] explodicle@local106.com 6 points 1 year ago

IMHO this strategy helps to prevent chewing. Workers will say "I need this union for a high wage" instead of "what do we even need these union dues for anymore".

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

UBI without a minimum wage promote workplaces that don't respect worker's labour, and socializes while privatizing profits. It would basically be the issue Germany had with social support before minimum wage was introduced. We need both UBI and a minimum wage.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why would people work for an abusive employer when they don't particularly need to work at all?

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[–] explodicle@local106.com 3 points 1 year ago

Does higher minimum wage make workplaces respect worker's labor more?

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[–] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We could go back to company scrip and children in the mines. That's where unregulation would take us

[–] MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Scrip is kinda low key a thing again. My SO works for wawa and there is definitely some scrip vibe. They have a company store, a points reward system, they will put you through school if you take classes that benefit the Corp, and the only way to move up is to basically bootlick management at weird company festivals.

It all has this very dystopian vibe of "everything within the corporation eco system" and my SO is a very principled women who is shy and kind and she refuses to take a step to elevate herself within the Corp, but getting a union going is pretty hard where we're at, everyone is very much of the boot tasting, welfare queen bad variety.

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[–] sounddrill@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 13 points 1 year ago

Actually, I think it's the government regulation keeping together capitalism

If it goes too hard, it doesn't end well but do not give these corpos free reign over the market

[–] exododo@leminal.space 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've just made an UBI community since there wasn't any on lemmy:

/c/ubi@leminal.space

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[–] Lexam@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago

There's got to be some conditions. How else do I control the people?

[–] complacent_jerboa@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

ancaps: "muh NAP"

ancoms: "please get away from our commune, thank you"

[–] Urist@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why should the majority of people settle for the leftover scraps of the capitalist class? I do see that it is possible for UBI to exist within a system where the means of production is under public ownership and democratic control, which I believe is necessary for social justice. However, if UBI is ever implemented in a fundamentally capitalist society, it only means that the wealth disparity has grown so large that the capitalists, in the act of preserving their heads on their necks, allow for a crappy standard of living for the rest. Although I could see myself welcoming UBI for a multitude of reasons, I am also scared that it would entail some form of permanent class disparity with the majority of people forever impoverished.

[–] trailing9@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Who would pledge 10% of their income to distribute as basic income? There is no need to wait until politicians implement it. We can start immediately.

[–] SaintNewts@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nobody making under 250k would be paying into it and unrealized gains would be included in figuring all personal income. The ultra rich are paid mostly in services like corporate jets, meals, stocks and options. Salary is pretty minimal compared to all the other perquisites that come with SVP/Director on up to the c-suite level jobs in the top 1000 US companies.

If I made 350k all in and UBI takes 35k, I still take home 315k.

Heck, that portion of income that goes to UBI doesn't even have to count toward regular income taxes. It can be all pre-tax dollars.

The thing is, the economy works best when everyone can participate fully. Locking huge swaths of it into personal fortunes nobody could hope to ever spend in a lifetime is wasteful and puts a huge drag on the overall economy. Sure, they can pop for houses and planes and yachts but that doesn't really come close to the kind of economic power generated by millions of working poor buying their daily essentials.

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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Income tax in Canada, where I live, is already 15-33%.

It's already horribly mis-spent. If it went up, I'm pretty sure the country would riot.

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[–] Chunk@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Okay all you commies get ready for politics 101

First don't rely on morals to make your argument. It, unfortunately, does not change capitalist minds.

Second, frame your argument in capitalist rhetoric. For example you can say, "UBI is important to stimulate the economy by enabling Low-Income-Americans to spend more on essentials."

Seriously, not joking, this is how you change people's minds.

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[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago

We need a UBI and medicare for all.

And we need the minimum wage to be double a living wage

[–] xengi@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

That's why the developed world is taking about universal basic income and not minimum wage. Guess the US will get there at some point too. If they stop falling back into the dark ages at some point.

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