Ask Lemmy

I don't like the idea of of subsidizing demand, but i'll take anything at this point

Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn't companies just subside the income by raising their prices?

Not necessarily. Companies need to set prices they can compete with. Customers might just go to the competitor otherwise.

This is provided that there is competition. Monopolies can set the prices how they want, because there’s no competition.

Are you in support of UBI?

I don't think that it's a terribly interesting question as a yes-or-no question for all UBI policies.

The thing about UBI is that the devil is in the details: UBI covers a broad range of policies. You really need to know the specifics of a proposal to know what it entails; UBI policies may be very different.

For example, there are a number of left-wing groups who like the idea of UBI, because they see it as a way to redistribute wealth. Normally, they tend to want something like keeping spending policy more-or-less where it is, adding UBI, and increasing taxes on some groups that they'd like to shift wealth from.

There are also a number of small-government right-wing groups who like the idea of UBI, because they see it as a way to reduce the role of government in setting purchasing decisions. Normally, they tend to want something more like a revenue-neutral form of UBI; there, one does something like cutting spending policy (on various forms of subsidy, say, like for food or housing) by $N and then shifting that $N to UBI so people can choose how to spend it. Here's a right-libertarian take on UBI:

https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income

Of course, as with any policy proposal, the details matter a lot. And the Swiss proposal is problematic in a number of ways. For starters, 2,800 USD a month means that a married couple could get $67,200 per year for doing nothing. And while it’s true that Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of per capita income, that’s still an awful lot of money. Furthermore, the Swiss proposal seems to involve implementing a basic income in addition to their currently existing welfare system. Few libertarians would be willing to sign up for that deal. But as a replacement for traditional welfare programs, there is a lot for libertarians to like about a basic income.

So, okay, both our wealth-redistribution guys on the left and our small-government guys on the right are talking about UBI policies...but they are talking about policies with very different implications due to the specifics of the policy. The left-wing guy probably isn't especially excited about the form of UBI that the right-wing guy wants, and the right-wing guy probably doesn't like the form of UBI that the left-wing guy wants. So I'd really need to know the specifics of a given UBI policy before I could say whether I think it's a good idea; I wouldn't just be across-the-board in favor of or against any UBI implementation, but would need to see a specific UBI proposal and consider it individually.

I heard an idea once about making minimum wage 0$ and giving everyone a liveabke UBI. That would mean that nobody is required to participate in the workforce, meaning that employers who can't afford to pay their workers a good wage would be priced out of the market rather than being able to prey upon peoples need for, y'know, money (which can be exchanged for goods and services). A very appealing idea for a 16 year old boy, and the only issue I see with it now is extreme specialisation in the workforce leading to less competition between different workplaces for similar jobs.

I feel like it's less about whether the process will go up or if capitalism can survive with it. I in feel that it's going to be necessary for humans to function. With population increasing, and jobs actually decreasing from technology for the first time in human history, from businesses automating stuff or self check out counters, we're just not going to have a job for every single person out there.

Yes, if it is a tax on speculation, investments, and gambling. I can get behind it being a trickle down system that the wealthy can't opt out of.

Yes

Yes.

Here's what I say about UBI. We may not need it today, but we better figure it out because we'll need it someday. As an example, take a look at America in 1800. 95%+ of people worked in agriculture. With tractors, the cotton gin, etc. all those careers will be eliminated. The cotton gin of tomorrow is autonomous vehicles, robots and/or drones. Jobs like delivery driver, cashier, etc are all on borrowed time. If we don't figure out some new economic framework before that time, our society is toast. All the "unskilled" jobs that served as on-ramps to more advanced employment will literally be wiped off the face of the Earth.

Of course, America being America, we'll treat this like climate change. Deny deny deny, even when it starts actively harming you. By the time someone tries to solve it, we'll all be screwed.

It's an interesting idea but I'd like to see it tried somewhere else on a large scale first.

You could cut down or outright remove various government assistance programs so there would not necessarily be more money for the poor, just not a bureaucracy to figure out if you qualify for this and that assistance.

Yes, it could coexist. Not sure why you'd think it would not. I still want more than a cubicle apartment and cheapest food.

Yes

Well I’m on Lenny so sure I’ll pick a fight.

No.

Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn’t companies just subside the income by raising their prices? Also, do you believe capatilism can co-exist with UBI?

Kinda defeat the purpose, because a UBI is supposed to support a decent, respectable livelihood. So the higher their prices are, the more taxes they'll have to pay, to support a higher UBI. You cant have UBI without capitalism, because capitalism creates the conditions where a UBI is necessary.

and yes, I do. Companies are moving towards full automation, all the more possible with the advent of AI.. and they are doing that explicitly to fire human employees to save costs. There will soon be a time where there wont be enough jobs for people, Which will be a fork in the road of incredible civil unrest, violence, and possible war... or a UBI so people can live with dignity, freed from the labors of capitalism by automation.

Yes, I am in support of UBI.

Yes, full support from me. Multiple localized tests of UBI have been shown to drastically improved people's lives. I think there are multiple other measures that would need to be put in place too in order to help minimize corporations just obliterating it's usefulness by raising prices.

I'm not as informed as I'd like to be, but my understanding is that things like VAT taxes can help get around online retailers like Amazon dodging taxes, as well as CEO to base worker pay ratio caps to ensure the people in a company that are actually producing the profits get rewarded for doing so. The CEOs could keep giving themselves raises, but it would come with the requirement of actually giving everyone in the company a raise too, which, quite frankly, is what should happen when your employees do a good enough job to bring in record profits.

My understanding is that Alaska already has something similar in nature to a UBI where every citizen gets a dividend from the state each year based on taxes collected from certain businesses. This is a dim recollection from me and I am probably completely mistating how it works/where the money comes from.

The trajectory we're headed we're going to need it or something like it.

With improvements to AI and physical automation there will be a metric fuckton of people out of employment completely and there are only so many jobs for the rebuttal of "the people will still need to maintain the robots and check the AI"

Unfortunately with our concept of ownership there will be massive resistance to it as "I own the machines that make the products/increase productivity, why should you get anything from my profit?" They're going to have to relearn the lesson Ford learned about "well paid employees are your customers" the hard way.

As it stands, at least in America, "The Century Of The Self" has lead to a complete atomization of society, every business is entirely independent from society, every individual is separate from society, so each individual owner won't see the need for a well paid workforce/population at the owners "expense" actually being beneficial to their own existence. They'll think "someone else" should deal with that issue, or worse "pull yourself up from your bootstraps" :/