Where does the big Government saving come from? You've replaced stingy welfare with moon on a stick welfare. It sounds like the time Homer Simpson became sanitation commissioner, made a load of crazy promises, blew his budget in a month and had to whore Springfield out as waste dump. If the country had mineral wealth it might be more viable or maybe a high skill/tech/wealth base economy but most people here work for Tesco or Amazon and would fuck it off at the drop of hat.
25 Apr 2023
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I'm not so worried about that aspect. money is an entirely arbitrary construct as it is.
What is of more concern is that if everybody has money, the price of everything will go up. To avoid that, you need a strong public sector of service provision, and strong market regulation against profiteering - along with true free movement of goods and services, and true competition (or goods provision will be generated on a local monopoly basis to strip markets/populations of assets). So the complete opposite framework to what we currently have. Don't see that circle being squared in my lifetime. I would be more concerned that the rich are busy perfecting robots and AI, and using wars and destabilisation to kill off unproductive population units, in order to solve global warning. That's looks more achievable in the short term, from where we are, than everyone being given freedom of choice and from poverty.
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Clearly you don't know how much it costs to administer the welfare system and its offshoots, as well as the personal taxation system. UBI renders the vast majority of those redundant.
The fact that you think UBI is welfare means you're starting from the wrong position. UBI is a radical overhaul of the entire system of government and by extension society, because it removes the concept of existence labour and respects every individual's right to live however they see fit.
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What do all the people who currently work for the govt in admin of welfare state/tax do when no longer needed there?
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Surely this will still cost to administer and any saving in administration (going from dealing with half(?) the population to all the population is unlikely to yield any saving, customer service doesn't work like that) will be chicken feed compared to the amount now being haemorrhaged. Likewise as I assume everyone will be by default at the tax threshold where is saving in HMRC resource?
I don't see how it is economically defendable. It seems to dismiss the contribution work makes to society on two levels, firstly getting the money moving round and that most peoples jobs perform some sort of function to assist society - helping, making, protecting, serving - are expendable.
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Maybe they become artists or race car drivers or bricklayers or chefs. Maybe they sit at home and watch daytime TV. They, like everyone else, have a UBI. Stop worrying about jobs because they're now optional.
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You're assuming that no one will work if they have food and shelter. In fact, most people will still work because we're most of us programmed to want more than just survival, but jobs will have to pay commensurate to how shit they are, and that will in turn lead to more automation.
You can argue that it doesn't make economic sense, but you'll be arguing with massed ranks of actual economists who will all tell you it does.
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What level do these economists say it should be set at?
I presume a level similar to the state pension?
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They keep running experiments to demonstrate how UBI won't work, but they keep showing that it does work.
I don't claim to understand the complexities of the economics, but from a gut level it is eminently fair and reasonable.
Of course the will be shirkers, as in every walk of life, but we, as a society, shouldn't be punishing people who can't because of people who won't. -
I'd be keen to see an article where an economist details what food and shelter consists of, which you won't find, because of course they can't. Who gets to decides what is fair? Which then won't be enough. History continually proves that even the most enlightened economists of the age might be fantastic in debate but they aren't sociologists. Communism and nationalised industries also make fantastic sense in theory until you start actually looking at peoples motivators. You'd get a much quicker and fairer redistribution of wealth with a salary cap, which is of course the socialists end game, but they aren't economists.
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Seems definitely like it's the fascists who implement a salary cap. Just not for them, of course.
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The other question is what determines eligibility?
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Saskatoon's answer to Wolfie Smith is looking like a strong earlier candidate.
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I really don't see a universal income as the answer. What do you do with it when the government releases the energy price cap so costs double, and housing costs increase exponentially? The idea of giving ordinary people cash, is so that you can take it away by coordinated action (removal of public provision, removal of regulation, the market provides less at more cost), while tricking people into believing that you did something good for them.
You can't live under dollar bills, nor can you eat them. They won't keep you healthy, nor educate your children.
For me talk of UBI is a trick, to distract you from what you should be doing. Taking the wealth of your society, to invest in it. To provide education, healthcare, shelter, food, safety, opportunity, and thereby an increased standard of living to all, while improving the offering of your society as a local marketplace and attraction for investment.
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You're missing the point of the word "universal". Every single person gets it, whether they're an unemployed artist or the Chairman of BT.
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People on holiday here? People working overseas for six months? People working here for two years? People who’ve just arrived from France on a dinghy? People with houses in France who fly back every other weekend? 16 year olds? 5 year olds?
