Antiwork

Having the mass majority of the population trapped in jobs that pay just enough that they put up with it, while giving away all their time and energy to a corporation is exactly why the average person has no power. They’ve had the will drive to force real change sucked out of them.

UBI is a mechanism that can help them take back their time and energy to affect real change.

The answer to our wealth disparity is to put power in the hands of the average person.

Average voter: "Ugh, all the power and responsibility is too much work. Can't we just elect someone that takes care of all of this for us?" Congress/parliaments are born. "Ugh, keeping track of all these politicians and their policies and waiting for them to enact laws is too slow and tedious. Can't we just elect some sort of super politician that promises to take care of all our problems quickly?"

If the labor force could opt out of the rat race because they didn't have to work, then they gives them immense power especially considering what they have now. Of course the necessities would have to be controlled in a not-for-profit manner so that you can't just have some land baron that adjusts the cost of rent and food upward to ensure it eats up all the UBI, same with utilities/internet/etc.

But for consumerist goods that people want because they enhance life, if people could realistically withhold their labor unless the capitalist offered equity etc in industries that produced those things, you would quickly see the power of the leaders of those industries wane significantly.

I don't see how UBI would materially worsen the lives of the chronically ill and those who cannot sell their labor. It's essentially universal welfare that allows anyone to survive whether they sell their labor or not. That gives you the ability to leave a job that is exploiting you. Without UBI losing your job means potentially becoming homeless.

I'd say that it isn't far enough, sure. I'd also say that food and shelter should be considered universal human rights that everyone has to by law have access to regardless of their circumstances. Which would itself provide many of the same benefits as UBI.

As an anarchist and a socialist I'd change almost everything about the way the current world functions. But as a direct thing that would improve the lives of almost everyone, I am very much in favor of UBI.

Why not both? We're already at dystopian levels of wealth vs poor, let's make the transition easier on the poor.

The answer to our wealth disparity is to put power in the hands of the average person.

Pay people to vote.

We should have universal basic dividand.

Yeah. My fundamental problem with things like UBI, reform/regulation, etc is that it leaves power in the hands of capitalists. Maybe in the short term you get some gains for a broader segment of society like during the height of union power in the US, (recognizing that even that was imperfect because of segregation) but in the long term capitalists can keep using their wealth and power to chip away at those societal gains. The only way to counter this while maintaining capitalism would be perpetual political activism, but that's simply not feasible. People need to sleep, eat, work, and live their lives. Corporations don't. They can hire lobbyists and lawyers to keep chipping away long after everyone else goes home.

Good first step though. Imagine all the protest/riot organising time we'd have

The answer (I think) it's not UBI, cooperatives OR more democracy. It's all this at once and even more.

UBI would mean everyone has a meal under a roof and has no fear of starting a business. Cooperatives put the value of the work in the hands of the worker. Free public universal healthcare and education systems with public affordable/free housing and public supermarkets makes everyone safer.

Have you met lemmygrad.ml?

Would you kindly?

The average middle-class capitalist moron view of economics is when you get rich the government fires up it's money machine and delivers you sacks of cash. The only thing keeping us all from getting our own sacks is momentary inconveniences and they too will be rich one day just as soon as they [fill in a thousand blanks.]

A billionaire has deprived vast numbers of people of something. You do not hold onto a billion dollars in your hand without the knowledge that some... or most of that would have paid for medical procedures, some of that would have been baby formula, medicine, overdue rent payments, gas to get to work for a struggling family, heat and water bills and so on. But you have found ways to skim that money from enough people that few notice. Because you don't miss something that was intercepted before it made it to you.

You simply cannot ethically hoard money.

Speak for yourself I revel in my stench

Lower daddy

In theory, we live in a competitive market where entities can't arbitrarily raise prices

Do you think that's possible to achieve? If all necessary labour can be accomplished by AI, where would this power come from?

Sure they do. My SO's ex boss was a multimillionaire who has a business that requires him to put money into it, as it's a long term investment kind of thing, and you'd think people were pulling his teeth out he fussed so much. Then don't have a business and sit on your ass all day and hoard your money. They're the greediest people.