I think it is closer to the current state of American welfare where you get very little money on the condition that you continue to try the game (go around the board and pass go) while all along, rich players and the ge.itself try to collect rent and taxes that just don’t have. Nevermind the ever present threat of being sent to jail.
I mean, the $200 does encourage me to create a monopoly and simultaneously extract maximum wealth from my opponents while also taking their homes. Not sure if the monopoly analogy is useful here.
UBI is capitalists’ best attempt at breathing life into capitalism. The benefits of UBI in the global north would still be at the expense of exploitation in the global south.
It depends on how it’s implemented - if it’s just enough to patch the system for a while, it’ll just become a way to squeeze more out of people
If it’s enough that work becomes optional, it’ll lessen the pressure enough that consumption will drop. More people will grow food, cook, and DIY everything from repairs to cottage handicrafts. They’ll have the time and energy to organize, politically and otherwise
Regardless, UBI is a stopgap measure - it can just extend the game of capitalism a little longer, or it can be the start of a transition
I think that definitionally a UBI is the latter, at least in my opinion. The point is that it elevates everyone to the same playing field, of having all essential needs covered (shelter, food, utilities, healthcare). Anything less is basically just the welfare systems that most countries (besides the US) already have. In Australia, unemployment is not enough to live on, it’s purposefully punitive to “encourage” people to find a job. Giving that same amount to everyone isn’t going to cover people’s basic needs.
Side note: Healthcare is a basic need that everybody has. So, if a UBI were implemented in the US, it would need to be enough to cover people’s health insurance. At that point, the government’s already paying for it, so why not just implement universal healthcare?
At that point, the government’s already paying for it, so why not just implement universal healthcare?
Because private health insurance companies are major donors, and no politician wants to upset the donor class?
And even then UBI is just another form of maintaining this “unemployed reserve army”. Guaranteed jobs for every citizen capable and desiring to work, on exchange for a living wage, would automatically eliminate the people’s need to stay at shitty jobs or accepting shitty wages, since they can’t be easily replaced; it would increase production of goods and services much more than UBI, therefore tackling possible inflationary tendencies… It’s really a much better patch to capitalism than UBI
How does guaranteeing jobs make people any less replaceable?
Also we have a crises of bs jobs. UBI would help lower it a lot. Guaranteed jobs would make it ten times worse
How does guaranteeing jobs make people any less replaceable
Because there’s constantly a labor shortage instead of a pool of millions of unemployed people
Also we have a crises of bs jobs. UBI would help lower it a lot. Guaranteed jobs would make it ten times worse
Why would guaranteed jobs make it worse? Guaranteed jobs could be decided upon (at the very least partially) by local neighborhood councils. Care for children and for old people, cleaning the streets, building new housing… Even if 50% of jobs created were “redundant” (which is impossible), that’s still 50% of actual useful labor compared to 0% of UBI
You’re just describing communism at this point. We’re looking for practical solutions
Practical solutions like the ones we’ve been failing to implement for the past 50 years of erosion of labor rights and welfare state all over the western world?
UBI hasn’t been tried on large scale anywhere. In small scales it’s been successful
Exactly my point, it hasn’t been implemented anywhere because capital will fight tooth and nail against it, and they’re, well, the owning class, so they have plenty of power. My point is we can’t reform our way into solving social and economic justice and fixing climate change
Yep, Lemmy on web browser no longer allows me to post images in comments. Dunno what to do about it so I guess I’ll just be sad.
UBI is not going to be without its problems, but it might be a stopgap to delay the onset of too many homeless starving people (which will result in police action, outlaw groups and eventually a proper Rebel Alliance, also a Résistance since chronic police brutality historically results in a résistance.
In the Great Depression, FDR enacted the New Deal because the choice was that or tremble before the Communist Revolution < swelling Bolshevik chorus > since an awful lot of Americans were living in paint-can shelters and dying of malnutrition on flour paste while Hoover was laughing and smoking cigars and playing poker with all the industrialists. Good times!
Here in the US, we’ve been inoculated against alternatives to socialism, but the ownership class whinging about quiet quitting and in the meantime not paying us enough to survive is running thin, so we’re probably going to see something between a civil war and a genocide of non-whites, non-Christians, uppity women, people who are the wrong kind of Christianity, and eventually people who fail to snap their salute quite snappy enough.
Because we entirely failed to fix these problems during the last century, and will probably fail to fix them during the next too.
But man, I totally hope I’m wrong. Please make me eat crow.
Yep, Lemmy on web browser no longer allows me to post images in comments.
Huh. Did you try the old
thing to link to another site? Actually, let me try real quick:I can see this on my end. There does, however, seem to be a problem with uploading images to Lemmy. Not sure what to do about that, sorry.
You’re using a different instance than the person with upload problems. That instance could have file upload issues that yours doesn’t.
I can see it too. So either I need to find a place to put images or find a place they already exist. Hmmm…,
Rather than discouraging people not to invest, I think the larger concern is the further entrenchment of a three class system.
You’ll have your capitalists, those that own the assets and robots and land. Then you’ll have some amount of humanity lucky enough to get one of the jobs not automated. Finally you’ll have those existing purely on UBI.
The economy will shift towards catering almost exclusively to the first two groups and anyone on UBI will be seen as a useless parasite. There won’t be any efforts to price goods and services for this group beyond the bare minimum because they have very little buying power and zero earning power.
I think we’ve seen time and time again that the rich are more than happy owning a small pie rather than putting in the work to build something bigger, even if that would result in larger profits long term. It’s going to be easier to just shrink the economy to those that still have jobs than it will be to make everyone have more equitable buying power.
UBI will probably happen and probably get paid, because it will help prevent revolts and unrest, but that is a cost center to the rich. You minimize cost centers as much as possible. It’s a subscription they pay to the masses to reduce risk and that’s it.
UBI will probably come, but much like AI, we’re probably not going to be happy with what and how it’s used. It won’t be to enable an artist to pursue their passion, it’ll be just enough to keep you quiet and docile, no more.
go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200
I would argue it’s more of an example of a yearly wage but ok
How is it equivalent to a wage? You don’t do any work to earn it, you simply have to pass go. Unless every player is a real estate agent whose boss makes them complete a stupid foot race to get their pay?
Side note, because I can’t be bothered writing a top-level comment too: Up until the more recent games that use the million scale, it’s always been $200, ever since 1935 (patent date). In today’s money, that’s $4,586, which honestly would be a good place to start for a monthly UBI in my opinion.
Edit: Oops, double posted, apologies.
I mean your literal job for players is to buy, sell, or rent real estate. That’s exactly what all players are doing. So it stands to reason that you would be paid a salary for this work. This is also peak capitalism in the 1930s. Ubi wasn’t even a glimmer of a thought in anyone’s eye.
I mean yes, I’m pretty sure the OP isn’t saying that it being a UBI was the original intent. And yes, that is literally the players job. But I’d like to hear about this magic wage private property investors get paid to buy, sell and rent real estate? Ya know, outside of the rent you collect.
Oh wait, we have that in Australia, sort of. It’s called negative gearing, and it allows you to claim all losses on rental investment properties against your tax.
If that was the case you wouldn’t earn money from the real estate since it isn’t yours