Every single study on UBI finds that it is a good idea that benefits both the recipients and society as a whole, but because it contradicts the dominant ideology it can’t be allowed to happen.
This is the only experiment that comes up from Googling Manitoba UBI, and it doesn’t seem to match what you say. A study of about 2k people, definitely not the whole population, and this article lists quite a number of positive statements about it.
It was 2500 families and encompassed about 10000 pretty much the whole town in some way and was over 4 years. The place was picked because at that time it was bit remote and somewhat isolated on that external forces would have minimal effect. It was determined the cost economically was far higher than the returns. Productivity did fall which was huge in that if this was instituted over a whole country and the result is less productivity, there is absolutely zero way to pay for it. The main take from the initial 4 year study was productively fell less than predicted but it certainly made live easier for the people getting it.
This was likely the biggest study ever done and the most controlled IMO. It did improve people’s health who recieved this money but that was at the expense of the rest of the country paying for it basically all thing being equal, they would get less health care.
Ubi also is payment to everyone. In these examples it is just payment to low or no income people. That is not ubi but simply welfare. Something that is not a bad thing to provide if there is excessive resources to do so.
In the end the project ran for four years, concluding in 1979, but the data collection lasted for only two years and virtually no analysis was done by project staff. New governments at both federal and provincial levels reflected the changing intellectual and economic climate. Neither the Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark in Ottawa nor Sterling Lyon’s Tories in Manitoba were interested in continuing the GAI experiments. The fate of the original data—boxes and boxes of paper files on families containing questionnaires related to all aspects of social and economic functioning—was unclear. They were stored in an unpublicized location by the Department of National Health and Welfare. In the end, only the Winnipeg sample, and only the labour market aspects of that sample, was ever made available. The Dauphin data, collected at great expense and some controversy from participants in the first large scale social experiment ever conducted in Canada, were never examined.
This study involved using one small town, Dauphin, as a a test for what happens when everyone in the population qualifies for the basic income. The study ran out of money long before the researchers originally thought it would, and the majority of the data wasn’t analyzed until relatively recently.
The general result found in all the experiments was that secondary earners tended to take some part of the increased family income in the form of more time for household production, particularly staying home with newborns. Effectively, married women used the GAI to finance longer maternity leaves. Tertiary earners, largely adolescent males, reduced their hours of work dramatically, but the largest decreases occurred because they began to enter the workforce later. This delay in taking a first job at an older age suggests that some of these adolescent males might be spending more years in school. The biggest effects, that is, could be seen as either an economic cost in the form of work disincentives or an economic benefit in the form of human capital accumulation.
New mothers and teenagers weren’t required to spend as much time working
Money flowed to Dauphin families from MINCOME between 1974 and 1978. During the experiment, Dauphin students in grade 11 seemed more likely to continue to grade 12 than their rural or urban counterparts, while both before and after the experiment they were less likely than their urban counterparts and not significantly more or less likely than their rural counterparts to complete highschool. Grade 11 enrolments as a percentage of the previous year grade 10 enrolments show a similar pattern.
Highschool graduation rates went up
Overall, the measured impact was larger than one might have expected when only about a third of families qualified for support at any one time and many of the supplements would have been small. …At the very least, the suggestive finding that hospitalization rates among Dauphin subjects fell by 8.5 percent relative to the comparison group is worth examining more closely in an era characterized by concern about the increasing burden of health care costs. In 1978, Canada spent $7.5 billion on hospital costs; in 2010 it was estimated to have spent $55 billion—8.5 percent of which adds up to more than $4.6 billion. While we recognize that one must be careful in generalizing potential health system savings, particularly because we use hospitals differently today than we did in 1978, the potential saving in hospital costs associated with a GAI seems worthy of consideration.
And hospitalization rates went down. There were other effects, like small businesses opening during the period of MINCOME and shutting down after, a possible decline in women under 25 having children, but none of this was evaluated for whether it was worth the money or not.
None of those benefits came close to the cost of the program. They ran it for 4 years and the budget yes ran out of money. Could have ran forever because the rest of the country was paying for it but once initiated productively decreased. Likely would have even decreased further but people knew the free money would eventually end.
How do you pay for a program when the local area taxes don’t cover it particularly when the tax income actually decreases once instituted?
None of those benefits came close to the cost of the program
How do you measure the cost-to-benefit of longer maternity leave? Or higher high school graduation rates? Not everything the government does needs to directly make a profit. Just look at roads for an obvious example of that.
once initiated productively decreased. Likely would have even decreased further but people knew the free money would eventually end.
There was only about a 13% decrease in hours worked for the entire family on average, and most of that was women going back to work after a pregnancy later and teenagers not working (probably so they could keep going to school).
How do you pay for a program when the local area taxes don’t cover it particularly when the tax income actually decreases once instituted?
Tbf, it's difficult to break programming. If your whole life you're raised in a society that measures your worth by your "hard work", then accepting that you don't need work to be happy is difficult for most. Most will continue voting against their own interests until there's a watershed moment. My bet is on unemployment hitting >30% due to AI.
If 30% of the population has to be on social security and can't be hired anymore, it would surprise me if nothing changed. Unless of course they blamed immigrants and minorities. They always serve as good scape goats.
The problem is the definition of “work”. There’s lots of things a person can do that both require a lot of effort and produce real benefit to society that are difficult or impossible to make money from, and therefore they aren’t “work”. Raising children being the most obvious example.
Indeed, work is defined by most people as "employment", but there's a lot of different work out there that is beneficial to the person and society as a whole, that isn't remunerated.
There was a UBI experiment in canada that was a huge success and of course the tories axed it as soon as they had the chance. Conservatives need to [extremely long bleep] … [yeah still bleeping] … … [still going] … [leeeeep] -yeah i’m going to have to redact this in post.
I’ve yet to see a study at a scale large enough to impact the local economy. Will the results hold when everyone gets monthly cash payments, or will rent go through the roof and that’s about it?
That’s about it. Why would anyone work for $20k/yr when they could get $12k for free? They wouldn’t. So those jobs would bump to $30k+, and a domino affect would occur. Nothing would be achieved other than the devaluing of the American dollar, which would lead to a loss of jobs, increased poverty, and guess what else - increased homelessness.
So what if there were 100 or more small scale experiments in 50 different countries, in similar conditions. I won't be playing with the money of the entire nation|state|county|city to possibly lose it and not get elected again!
I want vaccines to be tested on 30% of the population to see if it works.
We should be putting this prototype hardware in the hands of 40% of the population to see if there are any side effects before deciding whether to legalise it.
We will do a double blind test on 50% of the population with these new safety regulations to see if there's an impact on incidences. The study would be invalid otherwise.
Models and small scale experiments are for wimps. I, the ruler of the democratic country, declare an experiment shall be run at national scale! The economy of region X with will not be comparable to that of the rest of 90% of country!
Uh, the key issue is that it’s very unclear whether the results will hold at scale, since you’re suggesting a modification to society. There’s no (or very little) social component to the effectiveness of a vaccine or a new tool. Money is fundamentally a social construct and so what works in isolation or very small groups might not work the same way at large scale.
If a country with a population of around a million (or even as small as 100k) enacted UBI I would take those results to be representative of a societal change. So far I’ve only seen studies where a few people embedded in a larger society are given money, and that’s not the same thing.
You have to remember that industrialized countries already have a systems where people get money for “nothing,” but those quotes do a lot of psychological heavy lifting. Disability, unemployment, retirement, food stamps, etc. The difference being that it’s not universal and each payout is either “earned,” temporary, or a pity case. As such, the psychology behind that money just isn’t the same.
I’m interested in UBI, I just want to see results that can actually be reasonably transferred to a population the size of my country (350 million) before I make hard statements about its effects.
If a country with a population of around a million (or even as small as 100k) enacted UBI I would take those results to be representative of a societal change.
I honestly doubt you would. The typical arguments of:
it's not comparable to a country of 350M, they're barely as big as $cityWithOver1Million
their society is very different from ours
their implementation is different from what we could ever manage
the circumstances were different
would come around.
You're making exemplary conservative arguments to stalemate progress by creating a chicken and egg problem.
Won't accept results of change in a small environment because they aren't representative of change in large environment
Demand results of change in a large environment before applying them to large environment
Won't apply changes to large environment because results of change in large environment don't exist
You just made up a bunch of arguments I would never make. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I can’t help it if my current stance is an argument made by people who have no interest in UBI at all. Fuck, I want UBI to work as advertised, it would be a very simple and easy solution to a lot of problems (though it obviously wouldn’t be a 100% solve for all of them).
If we can get a small economic zone that’s in control of its own currency to run UBI, those results would be likely to transfer to any other larger economy. Really the only requirement is that the country must be in control of its own monetary and fiscal policy and the program must actually be universal.
Kind of a weird argument, isn’t it? If we did the opposite instead, it’s not as if you’d expect rents to fall – on the contrary, rent would go up in response to the added financial burden on landlords. Setting that hypothetical aside, wouldn’t a generalized inflation of rents be an acceptable tradeoff for reducing homelessness and untethering the 50+% of young adults who still live with their parents to move and work in more economically efficient environments?
While I actually consider multi-generational housing a good thing, let’s ignore that since the reason people aren’t moving out is financial and not social.
The question is whether UBI is the best way to solve that problem (and others) and I have yet to see data that can be reasonably said to actually be universal for a region. The closest thing I know of is Alaska, and their oil payments are too small and their economy too remote to say much about larger payments in a larger economy.
To me, because money has a social and psychological value to it, what works on an individual level has no guarantee to transfer to a societal level. I would be very interested to see UBI practiced on an entire economic zone, but good luck getting anyone to volunteer.
If people have UBI, you can get away with paying less though. That's how walmart does it; just encourage your workers to get welfare so they stay alive enough to work more
And that’s honestly my proposal for it. Basically, create something like UBI (my preference is NIT) that ensures everyone is over the poverty level, eliminate minimum wage, and have benefits phase out for some reasonable definition of “living wage” (say, 2x the poverty level, maybe 3x).
Working would never make you worse off, and people wouldn’t feel obligated to take crappy jobs if the pay isn’t there.
We could also eliminate many other forms of welfare at the same time and just increase benefits accordingly.
Agreed, I certainly wouldn’t touch Medicare or Medicaid. I’d also probably leave unemployment insurance as is, and this would kick in afterward.
But I think it could replace Social Security, food assistance, housing assistance, etc. And I think we could fund it by lifting the income cap on Social Security, but I’d need to run the numbers to be sure.
I'd say some disability benefits as well. Simply getting by can be more expensive when you can't do basic tasks yourself, even if you have the best universal health care possible.
Which we all know would happen IMMEDIATELY in lockstep with any widespread rollout of UBI, and any complaint would be met with half the country screeching “FREE MARKET REEEEEE”
Rent Control can only have one outcome. Decreased amount of available new or renovated rentals which coupled with an ever increasing demand for housing, creates some of the housing shortages we see in larger cities today.
UBI can be an effective way to fight poverty, and would be an even more effective way to combat poverty if we implemented a Negative Income tax whereby all welfare programs are rolled into the funding.
Rent Control can only have one outcome. Decreased amount of available new or renovated rentals which coupled with an ever increasing demand for housing, creates some of the housing shortages we see in larger cities today.
Only if you assume that private landlords are the only way to supply housing.
And how did that work out for the estimated 15-55 million people that died of starvation as a result of the "equitable distribution of land ownership"?
What a childish response. So the famine didn’t occur because it’s documented on Wikipedia?
The reasons for the famine are well understood and documented. I don’t think defending Mao is the way to go in regards to our modern housing crisis.
The housing market issue is also well understood and documented. We know companies and investors have been buying more and more houses, driving up prices. We know wages have not kept pace with rising housing costs. We know the gap between rich and poor has been widening year after year. Why the fuck are we derailing the conversation?
First off, I’m not denying the famine happened, aim just denying Wikipedia’s framing. The death counts are exaggerated and many were connected to devastation caused by the Civil War.
Second off, I am not advocating we do mid 20th century agriculture practices and kill the sparrows after doing land reform.
Exactly. If organisations (private, public and other) had to maximise for social betterment, they would release annual reports measuring it. There might even be entire industries dedicated to auditing measurements of social betterment.
But no, we're stuck using a system of 'value' based on the prestige of owning shiny rocks and control of the areas where those shiny rocks are found. And finding new uses for things and people that aren't the desired shiny rocks so that you may demand and acquire more shiny rocks as others in the same time duration.
If a majority of countries can successfully ditch the gold standard and allow fiat currency - as they did a century ago, that means the world is also able to redefine what fiat currencies measure. There's nothing actually stopping us from requiring social and environmental impact to be included in the calculation of financial valuations, except the people who have a vested interest in keeping the current equations.
I agree with not measuring net worth but how are you planning on measuring individual societal value? That just sounds ripe for discrimination and elitism.
In most cases, yes; but in this case in particular, with UBI increasing the buying power of the poor, those with capital would actually profit off of implementing such a service. No, this one boils down to good old fashioned classism.
Like the one recent CEO saying the quiet part aloud by saying government should promote higher unemployment, since in the high employment environment employees aren’t desperate and have more demands costing him money. That employees arent feeling enough pain and despair in economy.
To be fair, this isn’t that far away from the economic theory underlying using interest rates to manage inflation - it’s just phrased in a different way.
That’s the problem with fractional reserve banking it’s making up money for those who lend theirs. It’s about extracting value from those who work for those who accumulate. It’s not a tbf, it’s a this is also an issue in every area of our society.
If someone has “more” then yes of course someone needs to have “less”, merely by definition.
The question is really whether those with less are living below the poverty line or living comfortably. I guess it’s a question of semantics whether “capitalism” requires people to be living below the poverty line but I don’t think it does. It’s just shitty regulations which allow wealth to become as concentrated as it has.
Socialism in principle sounds great, but most times it’s been implemented it’s suffered from the same problem as capitalism - the people with power are greedy and use their power to manipulate and oppress the populace.
German politics and energy consumption aside, I think they have the best base of knowledge for what your proposed economic model has in store for them and their allies. They had that model forced upon them, and fought for change and economic freedom. There was a freaking wall dividing their country over that.
Are we just going to ignore the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, wherein Stalin let Hitler invade Poland as long as he got half of Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia?
You know what the US never did? Call Hilter and agree to a joint imperialist effort in carving up sovereign nations.
Edit:
“there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies” or that “it seems to us rather unnatural that a socialist state would stand on the side of the western democracies”.
No he’s a historian, all of their videos are extremely well researched and he’s gone on record to clarify multiple times that he is not a socialist. There was even a video where they complained that their work could only get reach if they framed it as entertainment, making it very clear the only reason he does these videos is because they get a lot of reach and make him a lot of money.
You just don’t want to watch the video because it showcases how fundamentally evil your underlying views are and you’re not ready to accept that maybe you’re a lot more pro-nazi than the western media and education has programmed you into thinking.
You think I give a fuck? Liberals will always just dismiss anything with “source??” if they disagree with it, but accept nazi lies wholesale.
For example whenever Ukraine, Russia, China, or North Korea come up, people just believe everything they hear unquestioningly even when they’re saying shit like “NK believes that unicorns are real”
I just think it would be funny if you talked all this talk about being antifascist and yet haven’t ever put your money where your mouth is.
Like are you genuinely antifascist, or are you just a racist liberal who hasn’t come to grips with the fact that they’re not the good guy, because I’ve dealt with a lot of guilty white people caked up on cognitive dissonance who will go around projecting accusations but the instant it’s time to show up for real action, they’re nowhere to be found. You don’t have to answer because normal people don’t get this invested on picking a side when both sides are overwhelmingly evil.
50 bucks. Food not bombs. Prove me wrong. Don’t do it for me, do it for your community.
You can address the fascist roots of Nazi Germany originating from America while also recognizing the fascist roots of modern day Russia originating from the USSR. This is the problem with building your world view around “which side” you’re on, it makes you completely blind to the underlying evil from your faction. Like bless their hearts because they’re absolutely in the right place but I cringe every time a communist feels they need to side with something everyone can agree was bad because it was their side doing it, just like I cringe every time a liberal opens their mouth because they can’t go three sentences without supporting some fascist regime.
You’re the one supporting a fascist regime, this entire discussion started because you claimed that being anti USSR is someone being pro Nazi.
The USSR was demonstrably more friendly to Hitler than the US, because it was fascist, ruled by a dictator, and had imperialist dreams of cutting up Europe with Hitler.
The US sure is imperialist and fascist and bad, the USSR was the imperialist and fascist parts of the US, dialed up to 12.
I cringe every time a tankie opens their mouth because every sentence is a nostalgia-fetishizing ultra-nationalism for Soviet fascist dictatorship.
I give up. You refuse to do even the bare minimum to address the fascism that you carry. You’re a fraud who deep down believes in the nazis and likes what they did. You’re just waiting for an opportunity to betray the left, mark my words it’s only a matter of time before it happens and when it does, remember that I told you so and that there won’t be any going back when people see you for who you are.
No man, it’s really easy to denounce fascism. Fuck fascism in Nazu Germany, in the United States, in Russia, and in the USSR.
You’re the only one who feels the need to defend a fascist institution. Ironic to talk about addressing “that fascism that you carry” when you have that going on my dude.
Socialism in principle sounds great, but most times it’s been implemented it’s suffered from the same problem as capitalism - the people with power are greedy and use their power to manipulate and oppress the populace.
This is true, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is self-contradictory and impossible IMHO. Because as soon as a member of the proletariat is a dictator, they are now no longer a member of the proletariat.
Now you don’t need a dictator, you can enact socialist policies democratically. This is very slow and kind of difficult, because the capitalists will lobby and fight so hard against it, and you need to maintain public support.
That isnt what dictatorship of the proletariat means. It means that the former bourgeoisie are temporarily politically disenfranchised from proletarian democracy
But if we raised the bottom up enough, it wouldn’t really matter if they were on the bottom. Many people would be happy if they had a stable place to live, food, healthcare, and freedom, and many don’t really need or even want “more” all the time. The problem is the vast differences in wealth and ownership.
Conservatism is built on hierarchy. Capitalism just says markets work and investment is gambling. You can do that and still keep everyone fed / clothed / sheltered, specifically because markets work, and can make food / clothes / shelter more plentiful. Some people having more doesn’t require private space station versus duplex cardboard box.
Conservatives only say market failure demands misery and successful gambling means unchecked power because that’s what they always say. That’s their only conclusion, applied to literally everything. That’s how conservatives think things work. The entire tribal worldview boils down to “well somebody’s gotta be king.” Just a fractal pyramid of militaries over empire, rulers over courts, owners over workers, and patriarchs over families. If you’re at the bottom you’re lucky to be alive, and how dare you question your betters.
The unspoken assumption is that change is impossible. This is genuinely how they think everything works. Like the universe itself dictates a steep gradient, and the only way things could be different is by shuffling around who goes where. So if someone is suffering, they must have fucked up to deserve it, and if you want to help them, you’re putting someone else in their place.
Remember that politics can be changed with votes. Tax them to finance change.
I agree the wealthy need to pay a lot more in tax than they currently do.
They also have disproportionate control over the electoral process in many countries, and most political parties are not even considering taxing them to the extent that they need to be taxed. Nor are most political parties challenging our capitalist society in any significant sense.
Voting is important, but don't expect voting alone to solve our problems.
It’s difficult, but blaming billionaires takes away our agency.
No it does not. Sod off with that. Correctly identifying a major contributor to an issue does not take away agency.
People have tried to fly for centuries. The nonexistance proofs nothing. It just indicates that it is not easy.
Voting doesn’t work because voters are like internet users, they are a given. Citizens have to offer their votes like lobbyists offer money to have an influence.
Voting alone also doesn't work because the options provided and the specifics of the voting system are decided by people who have an incentive to rig them in their favour. You cannot vote for options that are not allowed.
Hence needing to vote, and do more outside of voting, rather than sheepishly just doing the same thing for decades while it fails over and over again.
I would like to believe in your approach but I don’t believe in protests. That’s transferring union tactics from companies to the state. It’s valid in a monarchy but in a democracy, you can talk to other voters and have them support your cause. The citizens are the state.
Votes drive change. Believing in other means distracts from the real origin of power.
But votes have to be negotiated. Blindly voting for one’s own team turns citizens into a product.
There are other origins of power but votes are special because they control the law.
No votes do not control the law. They elect the government, who controls the law,
The government can be influenced by various means. Voting is but one of them.
Nobody cares if you do not like other methods, such as strikes and protests, they are still effective. And the owning class already uses other methods, such as lobbying and outright bribery, so to constrain oneself to methods that don't work is voluntary surrender.
Which protests are not ignored?
Pretty much every civil rights and liberation movement around the world has been accomplished through a diversity of strategies, which almost always include protest.
If citizens debate before the election about what they want and coordinate their votes, then the state represents their will.
If we could change politics by voting, we wouldn’t be allowed to vote.
We’re not stretched thin to finance these changes. Taxes aren’t holding us back. This is what those with true power in society and their cronies say to not do anything. This is the whole point.
No one is only blaming “billionaires.” This is you patronizing them, portraying yourself as a genius and the person you’re responding to as too naive and stupid to understand how life really works.
And no, we don’t have agency. We have a deluded sense of agency where we think we can vote and change the system from within.
I don’t like this logic because it’s predicated on an nondescript “they” with unlimited shadowy power. It leads to unhelpful conspiratorial thinking bordering on the magical. It obfuscates the real problems we face, and if we don’t understand them, even a violent revolution to defeat it would eventually replicate the system we destroyed because we didn’t understand how it came to be in the first place.
The reason it’s hard to change the system is because the system is self-reinforcing through individuals acting in their own immediate best interests and not acting as a class, not because “they wouldn’t let you change it, they’d just [rig the elections/not let you vote/kill you with a space laser]”. But that’s a complex answer, and it’s much easier to believe in the latter and call it a day.
Holy shit, what an anti-Semitic piece of shit you are. Absolutely classless.
It doesn’t matter that you think this sort of “logic” leads to conspiratorial thinking. There is a “they” and it’s the ruling class. The ruling class, and its defenders, is made up of a lot of people and institutions who create, dictate, and govern the systems that keep them and their power firmly in place. Sorry that society is a bit more complicated than you want it to be. Reality is a hard pill to bite sometimes for you racists.
And if you knew anything about anything, you’d know that democratically elected leaders are toppled by their ruling classes and/or outside forces (i.e. US) when something doesn’t go in the interest of the ruling class. To think somehow the US is immune from this is absolutely delusional thinking. Not surprising you’re into Western exceptionalism with your views on race.
And again, I just want to reiterate how much of a bottom barrel racist scum you are.
It makes perfect sense. What are you confused about? Are you going to try to “it’s just an OK hand symbol” your way out of this? What else would “space lasers” mean in the way you meant it?
My entire post was warning against gesturing towards a vague power controlling everything because it leads to conspiracism. One major example of that conspiracism is antisemitism. I have literally no idea how you can read my comment and come back thinking I’m arguing in favor of antisemitism. Yes, the space laser thing was a jab at the infamous “Jewish space laser” conspiracy, and I was explicitly saying avoid that kind of thinking.
The problem with our society isn’t that there’s a nonspecific ruling class directly dictating everything. There doesn’t need to be. We proletariat as a class are fractured instead of united. There’s no need to rig elections or prevent us from voting because we don’t act as a threat against power in the first place. The system amorally chugs along unimpeded as we go about our individual lives instead of acting together. Our daily compliance is what sustains it, and the system is designed to punish noncompliance automatically.
The scary truth isn’t that there’s a puppetmaster pulling our strings, it’s that there’s nobody at the wheel at all.
There are levels. Voters don’t have agency. But if voters would coordinate they would have agency.
The difference is believing in agency.
I am aware how stupid I sound. But how else can I phrase it that there needs to be a believe in change to create change? Right now I just hope that readers ignore the stupid part.
There hasn’t been internet for most of history, nor global warming, nor automation.
The joke is that people don’t want a fair revolution because the situation will be worse at first if resources are shared globally. People don’t want agency because they would be responsible for all problems.
Thank you. Judging by the downvotes and objections, people deeply don’t believe it. I had expected some technical issues that prevent UBI but reading those replies makes me sad.
This is Lemmy. People on Reddit will feel even more disenfranchised. But it could be the other way round because Marxism states that capitalist democracy doesn’t work and that a revolution is needed.
You can argue that national poverty lines are made to be kept under a certain percentage, sure, then we can ignore that. Globally, yes, the majority doesn't have capital (as in financial capital), but per country, there are stark differences. More things to consider
Especially GNI PPP: if you live in Europe, North America, Australia, China, Japan, and a few other countries, there's a good chance you belong to the global 20% of high income earners. The minimum wage in your country will probably be higher than what a low income family earns in a year
For the current 2024 fiscal year, low-income economies are defined as those with a GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,135 or less in 2022; lower middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $1,136 and $4,465; upper middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $4,466 and $13,845; high-income economies are those with a GNI per capita of $13,846 or more.
We are talking about people who have the capital in society to make actual systemic changes to society. Such as restructuring our economy to value lives, wellbeing, and sustainability over profit.
Quite obviously 80% of people do not have that capital.
You are cherrypicking statistics, seemingly to deliberately miss the point.
Global comparisons of income mean exactly nothing to the quality of life of people living within their country.
Even people deemed in that global top 20% are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and are unable to leverage that to make changes.
No, that’s a complete lie. It has never resulted in the death of anyone, but rather has saved millions of lives and improved their - and our - standards of living.
But then, you don’t actually know what socialism is, so you just make up lies for the evil boogyman hiding in your closet.
'm not ranting about anything, I'm just responding to your posts. It's not my fault you choose to speak in euphemisms rather than directly say what you mean.
So you have imagined my entire worldview and all the positions you are arguing against.
No, dickhead. When I argue for socialism, I actually argue for socialism with my full chest, not with euphemisms.
Anyway, this is not about me. So unless you want to try and defend your indefensible positions... have a nice day.
So you slither into my mentions, hallucinate things I didn't say, and expect me to "defend" arguments that only exist in your head. Sod all the way off.
Dropping the biggest turd of an argument and expecting me to pick it up. Pick it up yourself, and eat it.
And there it is, the extremist trademark. Attack and demonize anyone not in your "tribe". They're just an "other" right?
I haven't demonised you. I called you a dickhead. And I called you a dickhead because of your actions, not your beliefs.
Thanks for confirming everything I thought about you.
Think whatever you want about me. It was clear from your first message that you were going to do that anyway, considering you imagined my entire worldview.
So because somebody has a lot, you have nothing? Because somebody has a house worth 5M and don't have a house, means you have no dwelling? Because somebody earns 10x what you have, you have no income?
"They have more capital than I do, therefore I have none".
"A person with more capital than I chose to vote and lobby, that means my vote is null and void and so are my efforts".
"There's no point in doing anything ever if somebody else is better at it".
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English; (adjective) from Anglo-French or directly from Latin capitālis “of the head” (capit-, stem of caput “head” + -ālis adjective suffix; see -al1); (noun) from Medieval Latin capitāle “wealth,” noun use of neuter of the adjective capitālis
Who is "us"? Unless you're politically well connected or have nine figures in the bank, you aren't wielding significant power to make systemic changes.
You know that UBI is cheaper than policing the problems that runaway wealth disparity causes, right? UBI also means that employers cannot easily exploit workers with the threat of destitution, meaning that wages, including yours, go up. It also makes society more pleasant as people with prospects turn to drugs or crime less frequently.
The only people UBI doesn't benefit, is the absurdly wealthy. Your myopic worldview has you voting against your own interests.
Lots of people pick up garbage “for fun”. Where “for fun” means “because they care and it’s the right thing to do”. And by lots, I mean it’s such a common thing there are thousands of organisations around the world who do it. There are multiple national days in many, many countries based around picking up garbage. I myself have organised several beach clean-ups for a local group as part of a larger nation-wide beach clean up day.
Look up the organisation “Trash Hero” for another example.
Then there’s the engineers who work on ways to clean up the Pacific Garbage Patch.
There’s people who clean up slobs’ tables in fast food places because it doesn’t take any extra time to help out when you were going to do it anyway.
The point is: who picks up garbage for fun? Everyone else but you.
As for nurses… there are huge international volunteer organisations based around doctors and nurses volunteering their time. How have you never heard of any of this before?
Maybe you’d like to explain who and why people would choose to work when they entirely don’t have to?
Two reasons:
UBI provides a baseline level of income to keep people out of poverty. But people tend to want more than just the basics, and deciding to work provides additional income for luxuries.
People, in general, are inherently motivated to create, and will do so without the threat of death on the streets. Meaning people will still voluntarily work, only they will do so on their terms.
But also, with the increasing levels of automation possible, human labour is needed less and less to fulfil our needs. We need to decouple being able to live from employment. Because the path we are currently on involves artificially increasing consumption and creating meaningless jobs to justify paying people enough money to live.
What do you mean doubt? That people often choose to work more to afford more stuff is utterly uncontroversial. That's how the capitalist system is argued in favour of today.
On the other hand if you are admitting that capitalism forces people to labour under the threat of death, then it is an evil system, and morally must be eradicated.
Well it’s a nice utopian thought but not realistic.
Because of troglodytes like yourself. Here I thought you were asking in good faith. Serves me right.
No. It isn’t. Some people? Sure. Many people already live off of welfare and already choose not to work.
Yes. It is utterly uncontroversial. Most people aspire to have some luxuries in their life. And people go the extra mile to afford them. The fact that some people are on welfare, which often effectively prohibits even small amounts of work those people might otherwise want to do, doesn't change that.
And who cares if some small proportion of people just want the basics and aren't willing to work more? Do you literally want to force them with death to make them work? Why? They don't want to be there, they're unhappy to be there, they aren't motivated, they aren't productive. And I don't blame them!
And now you think I’m not? Why? Because I didn’t roll over and agree with everything you said?
Because you responded to something easily observable with the brainless "doubt".
You are either trolling or just remarkably stupid. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
And who cares if some small proportion of people just want the basics and aren’t willing to work more?
Not “work more”. Work at all. Because society needs people to work to function. Money doesn’t grow on trees, it represents other people’s time. If there’s no time, there’s no money. Money just becomes completely without value .
Do you literally want to force them with death to make them work?
What even the fuck are you talking about?
Because you responded to something easily observable with the brainless “doubt”.
Buddy your position is the only thing here that’s brainless.
You are either trolling or just remarkably stupid. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
I see we’re persisting with the personal insults. I think it’s pretty clear you have no interest in an honest and productive discussion and simply desire to lambast those who disagree with you. I have no interest in such a discussion, so you can be gone, thanks.
Now imagine if you lived in a society where someone gave a shit about your problems. And maybe they even have the skills and resources to fix them more efficiently than you would. Or not, does it matter, theyre willing to help.
It actually is. We all have problems. Humanity formed society to solve problems. Society has been hijacked (for a loooong time in many different ways) to extract value from others. Some people want to combat that.
Rent is only high because of artificial scarcity of real estate. The scarcity only exists because building new housing is decided neither by supply and demand nor central government planning, but by the people who accumulate more capital if housing isn’t built.
We really need to push for the feds to step in and start constructing government housing against the will of the NIMBYs and local and state governments then.
California has finally started forcing local governments to build more housing to stop the NIMBYs bit it’s still going to take so many years for housing to catch up even if they start now.
The Maoist uprising against the landlords was the most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, leading to almost totally equal redistribution of the land amongst the peasantry.
That depends on the housing market. If you have a surplus in housing, rent will remain stable because tenants will move if their landlord increases rent.
If you have a deficit in housing and more people look for a place to stay than there are available places, then tenants cannot move. Landlords and other businesses in deficit markets like healthcare will take all additional income.
To be clear here, while they advocate for UBI this isn’t really a study on the topic as much as it is on direct cash payments to the homeless. Which has been supported by tons of different research in Canada, London, so many places I can’t even remember them all.
We tried ubi during lock downs Here and it not only failed catastrophically but our government had to give up on billions of dollars people aren’t eligible for it caused catastrophic nearly unrecoverable inflation and people are now walking away from their mortgages that they can no longer afford
The government giving out money to people so that they could stay housed/fed did not cause record inflation. The capitalists massively hiked prices, then said that inflation made them do it. They then declared record profits afterwards. Capitalists scooped up all that money with ease. They then did their little song and dance of, “We’re all in this together. We’re just widdle beans trying to survive like you.”
If the government doing stuff for people over a 2 year period causes massive amounts of inflation, wouldn’t decades of handouts to capitalists cause record hyper-inflation? Inflation doesn’t happen because the government does stuff. Inflation happens because capitalists will pounce on any opportunity to eek more money out of you, then blame you for having too much money.
Recent inflation was actually caused by lending rates dropping to zero, investments being made on that basis and now that lending rates are normalized costs are increasing, and now prices are increasing to maintain profits.
Maybe because the people who hoard wealth are like everybody else and too few want to share? Why expect the billionaires to share if normal people don’t share?
Right now is the first time in history since city state times that the citizens can talk and vote together.
If people choose to share their income, they can do it now. The debate hasn’t happened yet.
Have an open register among participants for who participates and how much they pay.
Then members are incentivized to increase the income of other members. You also have a pool of people for other projects like building cheap new housing.
There is no horded wealth. If you hoard wealth, the Fed will print money until liquidity is restored. The only money that counts is the one in circulation.
Regular citizens circulate enough money to get UBI going.
Jeff Bezos is rich but he cannot spend his wealth unless he is willing to give up control over Amazon. As long as he sticks to that power, his income is zero.
Similarly, if you have money in securities, no money flows.
So to finance UBI, the wages of the citizens are more important than the wealth of billionaires.
That burns, especially seeing your comment frequency. But I would be a little bit proud if I am only annoying but not wrong.
I care about UBI and I think the movement is stuck because they expect politicians to resolve it and billionaires to pay. That won’t happen. It hurts to accept it but the sooner acceptance happens the sooner UBI is possible.
I think my biggest problem with these tests (not the idea of UBI) is that they go entirely based on what the recipients say. There’s not really any indication that fact checking is done to confirm they actually are living somewhere now, or they did get their cars fixed, etc.
I’m confident that the money helped, because obviously it would, but I wish we could get some actual solid data on how much it helped. The cynic in me believes that desperate people getting 1000$/mo will embellish how much it helps in order to keep getting the money, when in reality they need 1500$ or 2000$ to afford housing in Denver.
I’m not sure what definition of UBI you’re using, but not all forms of UBI need to cover the entirety of living expenses. UBI is just having income without strings attached. This very study is showing that even small amounts of money can help people get out of shitty situations.
Also as someone who lives in Dever, it’s not that expensive. Sure $1500+ is what you’ll pay around LoDo, but there are plenty of cheaper places.
I’d love to show this to people who say “but lazy people will be getting paid for nothing” or “competition is human nature” that capitalists made the fuck up, but it’ll probably go over their heads, or they’ll conveniently say that the test was not done properly
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