Hello, I’m not that informed about UBI, but here is my arguement:
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?
As long as UBI covers basic living expenses, then yes I would support it. Capitalism, as it exists in the west, is not sustainable and if it continues as is, there is probably going to be massive employment issues within a generation as common working people without specialized degrees and can’t afford to get them will be unemployable due to automation, AI and robots completing most common labor jobs cheaper and more efficiently.
I know the pushback against UBI is that if you take away the need for people to work to live, most people won’t work… and honestly I’m okay with that. I doubt there would a be serious decline in people seeking work because if you can still earn extra income for luxuries and nicer things over what UBI would cover… why wouldn’t you? And those who are content to sit at home or not work, is fine by me. Because I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years who only have a job because someone told them they needed a job. They were miserable fucking people to be around and we were more productive the days they called in sick or skipped. Some people should be paid to stay the fuck at home, and society would be a better place for it.
not a 100% ubi fan, BUT, the times, they are a changing - and I firmly believe every robot deployed should have to offset ubi. every AI cycle should drive ubi funding.
Trained on the involuntary corpus of millions if not billions of people, it must benefit society overall otherwise we’re going to destroy everything.
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.
Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn’t companies just subside the income by raising their prices?
As someone planning on starting a B2B company, I don’t see a problem with that. If companies make a ton of money, tax companies more and redistribute again. The curve can be made to fit.
But there’s a bigger reason for doing UBI: It’s cheaper and more effective than existing welfare. And more people will like it.
Your theory about companies raising prices to offset UBI is actually undercut by historical and present evidence.
There was a time when the United States had welfare. The United States still has food stamps. But nobody is seriously pretending that these things did or do drive up grocery prices.
Similarly, over time various states have raised minimum wage, and if your argument were accurate, then the prices in those states would have immediately risen to match minimum wage, but they didn’t.
In other words, you’re repeating a conservative talking point that has been repeatedly debunked by reality. I think you could try to improve your argument by arguing that inflation happens across the board, to everything, and therefore it would also happen to UBI. But what we’ve actually seen is that’s not true.
One problem with this question is that UBI can be implemented in different ways and the way that it is implemented is very important.
I think that the way most people think about UBI is that you would get enough money to not have to work. I don’t think that this is compatible with capitalism, because the main reason why people work is because they are pressured into it for economic reasons so removing that without providing people with some other reason to work will just cause the economy to collapse.
Even if people work for some other reason than money, you will still have the problem that UBI undermines itself. As less people work for money, the money you get from the UBI program will also mean less. Not only do you need a different way to encourage people to work, but you also need a new way to distribute the products of that work if you want to ensure that everyone has access to basics like food and housing.
For these reasons I don’t think that a UBI that offers people the option of not working is compatible with capitalism. Capitalism is the system that we use to distribute work and resources and if we implement UBI we will have to invent new systems to do those things instead.
It is still possible to have a smaller UBI under capitalism if your goal is to for example prevent money from getting to concentrated among the rich and instead stimulate the economy, or something.
Yes I’m 100% for it, And no, companies DGAF where your money comes from as long as you buy stuff. UBI is the only way capitalism can exist at all long-term, because to exist it requires customers. With the continuing drive to eliminate employees, eventually so many people will be unemployed that if nothing happens to supply them with money for shopping, they won’t be able to shop. Before we even get to the stage of food riots and massive social unrest, businesses will start feeling the drop in sales and profits. They really have no motivation to oppose UBI - which of course won’t stop the more short-sighted ones from opposing UBI, because people often do things that hurt themselves in the long run (see MAGA). But overall UBI is ultimately one way of keeping capitalism afloat as employees become less and less necessary.
Maybe depending on the situation, and whether or not we can properly tax those who need to pay for most of it.
If it continues as it is now, with corporate entities and billionaires paying nearly nothing in taxes, I wouldn’t support it. It only alienates the upperclass who we want on our side. Millionaires compared to billionaires is a similar scale to min wage workers to millionaires. We need to make it clear we are not after the 1%, but the 0.1%.
In addition to a UBI there needs to be some kind of price control. Otherwise I would fear that it’d simply subsidize corporate price gouging. Rents would immediately shoot up.
Well I’m on Lenny so sure I’ll pick a fight.
No.
My autism doesn’t know how to vote on your comment.
I support it. It’s an insanely expensive policy though and should be implemented carefully and be based on income. An example would be:
- No income $1000 a month
- Min wage $500 a month
Combined with better tax policies that don’t tax poor people. Health, education and other basic services should be almost free while having a strong social housing programme.
This way nobody gets priced out of living and there’s still plenty of incentive to get a job while having some funds to invest in hygiene and clothing to land the job.
This amount and threshold should be increased in the future.
I really support UBI since you can better model the demand curve with externalities instead of making things free while having it accessible to poor people. Free school might be too low of a cost when calculating benefits to the individual and society so giving people money to afford a heavily subsidised cost would allow for more accurate economics.
You don’t have to lower UBI by income. Tax does it for you.
Pulling numbers out my arse, you band your tax until an income of 100k means they pay 12k in tax, essentially reclaiming the 1k/pcm they are paid by ubi. All while insuring they are never worse off than taking no pay rise, as they still have 88k to spend on luxuries.
Numbers subject to bitter argument.
That’s true. People shouldn’t be discouraged financially from working. I haven’t done I proper calculation of all cases of this and the total tax cost but for sure you could use the tax system to get the desired distribution.
That’s not UBI, and might incentivise people to not work.
With UBI everyone gets Eg. 1000$ a month, no matter what you earn or have.
(taxes would have to go up to pay for this, which is fine, tax the rich)
I’m pretty sure people living on $1000 a month would want to work to get extra income in most cases.
No, I don’t support UBI, but I support UBS - Universal basic services. Food, housing, water, education, etc should be free at a basic level. Basic level for housing for example will be ‘Housing First’ concept in Finland.
Those basic services all have a cost associated with them… that’s why people support UBI to cover those basic services…
When I say it should be free, it means that there is no cost to be paid by individual
Why are you under the impression that UBS will not pay for those services?
The US Post service is the biggest UBS that most Americans pay with taxes. Those who can’t afford or can’t make money to pay taxes or otherwise still benefit from it as “free”
You seem to think it doesn’t exist or will not work. Yet it does. Libraries exist, public transportation exists. People needs can be met.
I’d be in favor of both. Universal services and some income.
A little bit of basic income would allow some flexibility just in case there’s something that UBS doesn’t cover on an individual level.
UBI that’s big enough to cover housing, food, clothing, education, etc would almost certainly get abused and exploited in every way possible to not be used on housing, food, clothing, and education…
I agree, and I think the best service we have but is being overshadowed by Amazon is the US Post service. It really needs a push to modernize.
I also think instead of UBI, anything that is a basic need will be taxed based on a progressive schedule instead of a flat percentage. That way if they try to make it more expensive then it will be taxed too much to be viable. We need to combat this inflation and make it so that a lower priced item is more profitable!
Trying to distort the market so that lower priced items are more profitable is quite challenging to do without unintended consequences. A progressive consumption tax would definitely be a worthy experiment
My stance on this is that if a machine can do the work of a hundred men, then ninety-nine men should be able to retire early with pay. Anything else is theft.
So, yes, I support UBI, and no, I don’t think it would break capitalism. It’s the same amount of money being put into circulation, just for less work.
USA needs universal healthcare first
While I agree, I personally think we should get rid of the existing support like food stamps, unemployment and replace with UBI.
Reasoning being with the current system it’s too easy to work and be worse off. Example being if you make $20 over the income bracket you might lose $100 in food stamps. With UBI there’s less administrative costs because everyone is eligible, less fraud and most important any effort you make to work will always improve your financial situation.
Never considered this, it sounds quite reasonable to me.
I don’t like the idea of of subsidizing demand, but i’ll take anything at this point
I assume you don’t believe in capitalism then. Because you suggestion is that the companies set the prices rather than the market. Anyway im for it because if done properly to should cover just needs. food and housing essentially. and it should replace all forms of cash assitance. welfare, disability, social security, unemployment. since anyone doing well would pay as much additional tax as they get or more then it just becomes something that helps when you need it. Lose your job and you immediately look for work not muck around with applying for unemployment because its always there. Get injured and you immediately have it. Can’t work due to age and its there. work part time and its there to help if you can’t handle 40 hours for whatever reason. have a kid, go back to school. Go to college and you have the funds to pay for the dorms and just need to worry about actual tuition.
