Ms. Johnstone! You are one of a literal handful of people who properly gets all of this! Thank you for this precise, beautiful analysis!
We need to strike at the core stories effectively. What I'm trying to do now is build an Universal Basic Income monetary system from scratch -- from human subjectivity itself.
In any case, there's a lot of people involved in a movement called Crypto UBI: http://cryptoubi.org
It is a huge mistake to just hand out the Basic Income story to the neoliberals on a platter and go away because we are too lazy to think about it properly.
I'm not convinced by the arguments for a UBI. There are several problems from a socialist perspective:
- it entrenches capitalism even further. What will the UBI be spent on, if not goods and services in the private sector provided by capitalist corporations? "UBI is not just a left-wing idea, it has also long been advocated for by parts of the right-wing, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. The goal is to use UBI to do away with the social welfare state. Instead of social programs citizens are given minimum cheques by the state and then purchase their social needs on the market. UBI will not be used to decommodify social relations, but used to desocialize state services."
- (from a US critique) A UBI that’s financed primarily by tax increases would require the American people to accept a level of taxation that vastly exceeds anything in U.S. history. It’s hard to imagine that such a UBI would advance very far, especially given the tax increases we’ll already need for Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure, and other needs.
- Inflation: If workers in large enough numbers are able to sit outside of the labour market and sustain their basic needs capitalism would cease to function. UBI naively assumes that capitalists and the state would not respond politically and economically to the changing market condition of labour. The logic of capitalism would push capitalists to at the very least raise wages and increase prices on goods and services. The ultimate goal would be to compel workers back into the labour market, and make them dependent on selling their labour power in order to live.
- Increasing relative poverty: If you take the money targeted on people in the bottom fifth or two-fifths of the population and convert it to universal payments to people all the way up the income scale, you’re redistributing income upward. That would increase poverty and inequality rather than reduce them.
- It's not been shown to work: "Research conducted for Public Services International, a global trade union federation, reviewed for the first time 16 practical projects that have tested different ways of distributing regular cash payments to individuals across a range of poor, middle-income and rich countries, as well as copious literature on the topic.
It could find no evidence to suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or longer term – or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. The report concludes that the money needed to pay for an adequate UBI scheme “would be better spent on reforming social protection systems, and building more and better-quality public services”. Redistributing the personal tax allowance and developing the idea of universal basic services (UBS) could offer a more promising alternative. This calls for more and better quality public services that are free to those who need them, regardless of ability to pay. Healthcare and education are obvious examples, and it is argued that a similar approach should be applied to areas such as transport, housing, social care and information – everyday essentials that should be available to all. Collective provision offers more cost-effective, socially just, redistributive and sustainable ways of meeting people’s needs than leaving individuals to buy what they can afford in the marketplace."
Ms. Johnstone! You are one of a literal handful of people who properly gets all of this! Thank you for this precise, beautiful analysis!
We need to strike at the core stories effectively. What I'm trying to do now is build an Universal Basic Income monetary system from scratch -- from human subjectivity itself.
In any case, there's a lot of people involved in a movement called Crypto UBI: http://cryptoubi.org
You'd be better off campaigning for universal basic services. UBI schemes accept the power of money in a capitalist system.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Basic-Income-as-a-Neoliberal-Weapon-20170217-0009.html
We don't want the Neoliberal UBI!
We are for the actually Universal, Unconditional Basic Income!
http://www.recivitas.org/basic-income-books
It is a huge mistake to just hand out the Basic Income story to the neoliberals on a platter and go away because we are too lazy to think about it properly.
I'm not convinced by the arguments for a UBI. There are several problems from a socialist perspective:
- it entrenches capitalism even further. What will the UBI be spent on, if not goods and services in the private sector provided by capitalist corporations? "UBI is not just a left-wing idea, it has also long been advocated for by parts of the right-wing, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. The goal is to use UBI to do away with the social welfare state. Instead of social programs citizens are given minimum cheques by the state and then purchase their social needs on the market. UBI will not be used to decommodify social relations, but used to desocialize state services."
- (from a US critique) A UBI that’s financed primarily by tax increases would require the American people to accept a level of taxation that vastly exceeds anything in U.S. history. It’s hard to imagine that such a UBI would advance very far, especially given the tax increases we’ll already need for Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure, and other needs.
- Inflation: If workers in large enough numbers are able to sit outside of the labour market and sustain their basic needs capitalism would cease to function. UBI naively assumes that capitalists and the state would not respond politically and economically to the changing market condition of labour. The logic of capitalism would push capitalists to at the very least raise wages and increase prices on goods and services. The ultimate goal would be to compel workers back into the labour market, and make them dependent on selling their labour power in order to live.
- Increasing relative poverty: If you take the money targeted on people in the bottom fifth or two-fifths of the population and convert it to universal payments to people all the way up the income scale, you’re redistributing income upward. That would increase poverty and inequality rather than reduce them.
- It's not been shown to work: "Research conducted for Public Services International, a global trade union federation, reviewed for the first time 16 practical projects that have tested different ways of distributing regular cash payments to individuals across a range of poor, middle-income and rich countries, as well as copious literature on the topic.
It could find no evidence to suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or longer term – or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. The report concludes that the money needed to pay for an adequate UBI scheme “would be better spent on reforming social protection systems, and building more and better-quality public services”. Redistributing the personal tax allowance and developing the idea of universal basic services (UBS) could offer a more promising alternative. This calls for more and better quality public services that are free to those who need them, regardless of ability to pay. Healthcare and education are obvious examples, and it is argued that a similar approach should be applied to areas such as transport, housing, social care and information – everyday essentials that should be available to all. Collective provision offers more cost-effective, socially just, redistributive and sustainable ways of meeting people’s needs than leaving individuals to buy what they can afford in the marketplace."