The UBI should be inadequate
arnoldkling.substack.com
and should replace welfare
  • Evinceo@awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    The basic argument for UBI is that means-testing is a humiliating waste of resources and it would be more efficient to just hand everyone a flat payment. Basically it’s better to cut a cheque to the small number of Gates-es and Bezos-es of the world than to force a large number of people to waste time proving that they’re not, and hiring people to make that determination, etc.

    In theory, it could work. However in a democracy where people care deeply about how their tax dollars are spent, it’s a very difficult pill. Witness the constant threats to remove even existing means-tested welfare.

    Finally, it’s become a bit of a techbro pie in the sky fantasy because they have designs upon creating a large amount of unemployment and would like to try and keep the pitchfork mobs away from their bunkers.

    • maol@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      in the UK some people were able to almost use the dole like a UBI during the crushing recession of the late 70s and 80s - take the payments without looking for a new job, and spend the time doing non-profit or low-profit work like art, music or political organizing. What’s changed? UK benefit system is now geared to harrass the long-term unemployed into work, the actual amount of money is much lower than it used to be, and the costs of housing has ballooned due the end of social housing and increasingly hostile laws against squatting.

    • locallynonlinear@awful.systemsEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      I think something like UBI will succeed but it won’t look to us like UBI. Like, maybe it seems stupid, but as far as political systems go, the key is persuasion in absurdity and narrative. To persuade people into UBI it has to be dressed up politically as --something else-- in the same way that all kinds of welfare (social and corporate) tends to get simultaneously denied and reinforced with conflicting narratives.

      Once enough disparate and contradictory parties are convinced that “more of the good guys benefit from this than the bad guys”, it gets locked in and becomes political cannon. Until later when the political systems feint undoing it again for a different set of points.

    • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Understood.

      • Cutting a check for everyone without much fuss makes sense, at least in the short term. Long-term: I am too lazy to think or talk about this in further detail, but in short, I think it’s easy to argue that additional structural changes beyond UBI would be needed for equity in society to be established and maintained.
      • I agree that implementing UBI today would be a hard sell to many people, not even accounting for the counter politics from anyone right of centre.
      • Also, techbros love simplistic solutions to complex issues that let them stop caring and go back to trying to suck from VC money hoses.