Remember, we know how to address many of the world’s problems, including poverty, homelessness, and climate change.
But those with capital in society choose not to.
Those with capital choose not to
Those with capital profit off of not doing so.
Like the one recent CEO saying the quiet part aloud by saying government should promote higher unemployment, since in the high employment environment employees aren’t desperate and have more demands costing him money. That employees arent feeling enough pain and despair in economy.
To be fair, this isn’t that far away from the economic theory underlying using interest rates to manage inflation - it’s just phrased in a different way.
I recently heard it phrased like this:
Capitalism is built on hierarchy, which means someone fundamentally NEEDS to be at the bottom. There is no way around it, someone needs to suffer.
But if we raised the bottom up enough, it wouldn’t really matter if they were on the bottom. Many people would be happy if they had a stable place to live, food, healthcare, and freedom, and many don’t really need or even want “more” all the time. The problem is the vast differences in wealth and ownership.
That’s a fair point. But in a world that values money above all else, that’s not just a divide in wealth and ownership but a divide in power.
The problem is you can’t exploit comfortable people, so the uber rich would only be super rich, and that’s not good enough for them…
Conservatism is built on hierarchy. Capitalism just says markets work and investment is gambling. You can do that and still keep everyone fed / clothed / sheltered, specifically because markets work, and can make food / clothes / shelter more plentiful. Some people having more doesn’t require private space station versus duplex cardboard box.
Conservatives only say market failure demands misery and successful gambling means unchecked power because that’s what they always say. That’s their only conclusion, applied to literally everything. That’s how conservatives think things work. The entire tribal worldview boils down to “well somebody’s gotta be king.” Just a fractal pyramid of militaries over empire, rulers over courts, owners over workers, and patriarchs over families. If you’re at the bottom you’re lucky to be alive, and how dare you question your betters.
The unspoken assumption is that change is impossible. This is genuinely how they think everything works. Like the universe itself dictates a steep gradient, and the only way things could be different is by shuffling around who goes where. So if someone is suffering, they must have fucked up to deserve it, and if you want to help them, you’re putting someone else in their place.
I don’t think that this is really true.
If someone has “more” then yes of course someone needs to have “less”, merely by definition.
The question is really whether those with less are living below the poverty line or living comfortably. I guess it’s a question of semantics whether “capitalism” requires people to be living below the poverty line but I don’t think it does. It’s just shitty regulations which allow wealth to become as concentrated as it has.
Socialism in principle sounds great, but most times it’s been implemented it’s suffered from the same problem as capitalism - the people with power are greedy and use their power to manipulate and oppress the populace.
Socialism in principle sounds great, but most times it’s been implemented it’s suffered from the same problem as capitalism - the people with power are greedy and use their power to manipulate and oppress the populace.
This is true, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is self-contradictory and impossible IMHO. Because as soon as a member of the proletariat is a dictator, they are now no longer a member of the proletariat.
Now you don’t need a dictator, you can enact socialist policies democratically. This is very slow and kind of difficult, because the capitalists will lobby and fight so hard against it, and you need to maintain public support.
That isnt what dictatorship of the proletariat means. It means that the former bourgeoisie are temporarily politically disenfranchised from proletarian democracy
I wish all .de instances a very get off my federation
Amazing.
German politics and energy consumption aside, I think they have the best base of knowledge for what your proposed economic model has in store for them and their allies. They had that model forced upon them, and fought for change and economic freedom. There was a freaking wall dividing their country over that.
Don’t shitpost on good discussion please.
They had that model forced upon them, and fought for change and economic freedom.
East germans, especially women and lgbt people, lost a lot of practical rights during reunification
The nazis were socialist
Daily reminder that Germany never underwent denazification
He’s referring to post-WW2 East Germany being controlled by the USSR you absolute gonk.
In most cases, yes; but in this case in particular, with UBI increasing the buying power of the poor, those with capital would actually profit off of implementing such a service. No, this one boils down to good old fashioned classism.
And make sure their propaganda gets pushed as truth and that any opposition to it will lead to genocide and prison camps
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Remember that politics can be changed with votes. Tax them to finance change.
It’s difficult, but blaming billionaires takes away our agency.
If we could change politics by voting, we wouldn’t be allowed to vote.
We’re not stretched thin to finance these changes. Taxes aren’t holding us back. This is what those with true power in society and their cronies say to not do anything. This is the whole point.
No one is only blaming “billionaires.” This is you patronizing them, portraying yourself as a genius and the person you’re responding to as too naive and stupid to understand how life really works.
And no, we don’t have agency. We have a deluded sense of agency where we think we can vote and change the system from within.
I don’t like this logic because it’s predicated on an nondescript “they” with unlimited shadowy power. It leads to unhelpful conspiratorial thinking bordering on the magical. It obfuscates the real problems we face, and if we don’t understand them, even a violent revolution to defeat it would eventually replicate the system we destroyed because we didn’t understand how it came to be in the first place.
The reason it’s hard to change the system is because the system is self-reinforcing through individuals acting in their own immediate best interests and not acting as a class, not because “they wouldn’t let you change it, they’d just [rig the elections/not let you vote/kill you with a space laser]”. But that’s a complex answer, and it’s much easier to believe in the latter and call it a day.
Holy shit, what an anti-Semitic piece of shit you are. Absolutely classless.
It doesn’t matter that you think this sort of “logic” leads to conspiratorial thinking. There is a “they” and it’s the ruling class. The ruling class, and its defenders, is made up of a lot of people and institutions who create, dictate, and govern the systems that keep them and their power firmly in place. Sorry that society is a bit more complicated than you want it to be. Reality is a hard pill to bite sometimes for you racists.
And if you knew anything about anything, you’d know that democratically elected leaders are toppled by their ruling classes and/or outside forces (i.e. US) when something doesn’t go in the interest of the ruling class. To think somehow the US is immune from this is absolutely delusional thinking. Not surprising you’re into Western exceptionalism with your views on race.
And again, I just want to reiterate how much of a bottom barrel racist scum you are.
I have no idea who you are talking to. Did you respond to the right comment? None of this makes sense as a response to anything I just said.
It makes perfect sense. What are you confused about? Are you going to try to “it’s just an OK hand symbol” your way out of this? What else would “space lasers” mean in the way you meant it?
My entire post was warning against gesturing towards a vague power controlling everything because it leads to conspiracism. One major example of that conspiracism is antisemitism. I have literally no idea how you can read my comment and come back thinking I’m arguing in favor of antisemitism. Yes, the space laser thing was a jab at the infamous “Jewish space laser” conspiracy, and I was explicitly saying avoid that kind of thinking.
The problem with our society isn’t that there’s a nonspecific ruling class directly dictating everything. There doesn’t need to be. We proletariat as a class are fractured instead of united. There’s no need to rig elections or prevent us from voting because we don’t act as a threat against power in the first place. The system amorally chugs along unimpeded as we go about our individual lives instead of acting together. Our daily compliance is what sustains it, and the system is designed to punish noncompliance automatically.
The scary truth isn’t that there’s a puppetmaster pulling our strings, it’s that there’s nobody at the wheel at all.
There are levels. Voters don’t have agency. But if voters would coordinate they would have agency.
The difference is believing in agency.
I am aware how stupid I sound. But how else can I phrase it that there needs to be a believe in change to create change? Right now I just hope that readers ignore the stupid part.
What you’re saying can happen has literally never happened in human history though, right?
There’s a reason why the nonviolent revolution Wikipedia article is essentially empty, right?
(I’m not downvoting you BTW, I upvoted.)
Thanks for the upvote.
There hasn’t been internet for most of history, nor global warming, nor automation.
The joke is that people don’t want a fair revolution because the situation will be worse at first if resources are shared globally. People don’t want agency because they would be responsible for all problems.
I love what you said about believing in agency: knowing what power is ultimately in our hands would change the world for the better.
Thank you. Judging by the downvotes and objections, people deeply don’t believe it. I had expected some technical issues that prevent UBI but reading those replies makes me sad.
This is Lemmy. People on Reddit will feel even more disenfranchised. But it could be the other way round because Marxism states that capitalist democracy doesn’t work and that a revolution is needed.
The tail has been wagging the dog for quite some time now
It’s not just a matter of reversing power.
Billionaires lead. Regular citizens would massively have to change their lives if they want to change that.
Remember that politics can be changed with votes. Tax them to finance change.
I agree the wealthy need to pay a lot more in tax than they currently do.
They also have disproportionate control over the electoral process in many countries, and most political parties are not even considering taxing them to the extent that they need to be taxed. Nor are most political parties challenging our capitalist society in any significant sense.
Voting is important, but don’t expect voting alone to solve our problems.
It’s difficult, but blaming billionaires takes away our agency.
No it does not. Sod off with that. Correctly identifying a major contributor to an issue does not take away agency.
What but voting should solve the problems? You won’t stage a revolution.
Direct action.
How about direct action to make citizens vote in a coordinated way?
But you must have other direct actions in mind. Which ones?
Voting. Strikes. Mass protest. More, if ultimately required.
Why strikes and mass protests? Vote accordingly and let the law drive the change.
Because most of us have our own problems and don’t feel responsible for the lives of others.
Now imagine if you lived in a society where someone gave a shit about your problems. And maybe they even have the skills and resources to fix them more efficiently than you would. Or not, does it matter, theyre willing to help.
That would be wonderful but that’s not what we’re discussing.
It actually is. We all have problems. Humanity formed society to solve problems. Society has been hijacked (for a loooong time in many different ways) to extract value from others. Some people want to combat that.
Some “have their own problems to deal with”
Society has been hijacked to extract value
No it was formed to exchange value.
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If you can’t understand the difference between “extracting” and “exchanging”, that’s the type of thing only a dictionary can help you with, sorry.
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You, like the vast majority of people, are (almost certainly) not included in “those with capital”
Who is “us”? Unless you’re politically well connected or have nine figures in the bank, you aren’t wielding significant power to make systemic changes.
“Us” the people who pay taxes and are hypothetically responsible for paying for UBI.
Unless you’re politically well connected or have nine figures in the bank, you aren’t wielding significant power to make systemic changes.
And yet you’re expected to pay for UBI nonetheless…
You know that UBI is cheaper than policing the problems that runaway wealth disparity causes, right? UBI also means that employers cannot easily exploit workers with the threat of destitution, meaning that wages, including yours, go up. It also makes society more pleasant as people with prospects turn to drugs or crime less frequently.
The only people UBI doesn’t benefit, is the absurdly wealthy. Your myopic worldview has you voting against your own interests.
No, I don’t know any of that.
Maybe you’d like to explain who and why people would choose to work when they entirely don’t have to?
That is false. Most of us aren’t sociopaths like you.
But those with capital in society choose not to.
That’s a good 80% of the population
Are you saying that 80 percent of society owns the means of production?
Capital != means of production
It literally does, according to the person who coined the term and socialist political economic theory up to the present.
Have you read any marx? Any marx whatsoever?
Capital was coined by Marx? Say what?
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English; (adjective) from Anglo-French or directly from Latin capitālis “of the head” (capit-, stem of caput “head” + -ālis adjective suffix; see -al1); (noun) from Medieval Latin capitāle “wealth,” noun use of neuter of the adjective capitālis
Sorry. You’re right. Allow me to clarify. “Who used the term in political economics”
Ah yes. 80. Wealth to scale
So because somebody has a lot, you have nothing? Because somebody has a house worth 5M and don’t have a house, means you have no dwelling? Because somebody earns 10x what you have, you have no income?
“They have more capital than I do, therefore I have none”.
“A person with more capital than I chose to vote and lobby, that means my vote is null and void and so are my efforts”.
“There’s no point in doing anything ever if somebody else is better at it”.
Except that’s just false. I actually cannot fathom where you pulled that estimate from.
You can argue that national poverty lines are made to be kept under a certain percentage, sure, then we can ignore that. Globally, yes, the majority doesn’t have capital (as in financial capital), but per country, there are stark differences. More things to consider
- internet access
- smartphone penetration
- poverty percentage
- Gross National Income Per capita at Purchasing Parity
- Global total of low, middle, high income
Especially GNI PPP: if you live in Europe, North America, Australia, China, Japan, and a few other countries, there’s a good chance you belong to the global 20% of high income earners. The minimum wage in your country will probably be higher than what a low income family earns in a year
For the current 2024 fiscal year, low-income economies are defined as those with a GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,135 or less in 2022; lower middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $1,136 and $4,465; upper middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $4,466 and $13,845; high-income economies are those with a GNI per capita of $13,846 or more.
Can you fathom?
We are talking about people who have the capital in society to make actual systemic changes to society. Such as restructuring our economy to value lives, wellbeing, and sustainability over profit.
Quite obviously 80% of people do not have that capital.
You are cherrypicking statistics, seemingly to deliberately miss the point.
Global comparisons of income mean exactly nothing to the quality of life of people living within their country.
Even people deemed in that global top 20% are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and are unable to leverage that to make changes.
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there were an estimated 200 million people and virtually 100% poverty.
Now there are over 8.5 billion people and yet we’ve managed to reduce both poverty and hunger to the lowest levels in history. Along with the lowest rates of people dying due to war.
socialism didn’t do that.
Completely irrelevant to what I wrote. My comment has nothing to do with socialism.
Not to mention fallaciously attributing technological innovations to capitalism as if they could not occur under other economic systems.
So in your fantasy world we would be at 8.5 billion people along with low poverty, hunger, and deaths from war… but replacing capitalism with socialism.
Likely you fantasize no income and instead it would be the whole “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” thing, right?
Unfortunately for your fantasy… the result of socialism has always been the deaths of millions of people through starvation and murder (followed by collapse and/or acceptance of capitalism)
It sure helped, though.
Probably one of the biggest benefactors.
Socialism has resulted in the deaths of millions of people through starvation and murder.
There are no redeeming qualities of socialism.
Similar experiments in Vancouver: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/30/canada-study-homeless-money-spending
Ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/basic-income-mcmaster-report-1.5485729
Turns out, socialism ain’t that bad eh?
That isnt socialism, the proletariat doesn’t control the means of production.
I think you are confusing socialism with communism.
Are you in a political organization that is explicitly socialist? Have you read any literature by any notable socialist author?
I know the answer to both is no. Because I know you’re confusing yourself as someone who is informed about what socialism and communism are.
UBI is socialism? Without any price caps on goods and services it just gives capitalists another excuse to raise prices.
You read the first study? The money was not given to those that has substance abuse, mental health symptoms or alcohol abuse because they felt they represented a small portion of the homeless. Was given to people that were sleeping in friends house and some in cars and didn’t abuse alcohol or drugs. That is a joke of an experiment and in no ready ubi. Not does it indicate on any meaningful way how it is paid for as it doesn’t include everyone.
The second study found only 3/4 of the people continued to work and ultimately the 150 million dollar program was cancelled because it did not appear to increase contribution to society in any economic way.
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It’s not like it’s that expensive to determine who’s homeless because they don’t have money. Solving homelessness isn’t a single golden bullet.
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They gave the money to people living on friends couches. That is not exactly homeless but was considered a roommate at one time. Ubi is universal. It is in the name. Give it to every person regardless of status and see how effective it is compared to the money spent. I bet it is a poor return.
Pretty much they’re giving money to people who are most likely to be transitionally homeless and then claiming success even though most if not all of the participants wouldn’t be homeless after a year anyway.
99.999999999% of the homeless are homeless because they don’t have enough money.
Depends where you are.
That is pretty much bullshit. From a brother in law that died of substance abuse and another I house for same reason, nearly every homeless person I have met has had some type of substance abuse. Being you are making that claim, do you have a source to back it up?
Addiction Disorders: The relationship between addiction and homelessness is complex and controversial. While rates of alcohol and drug abuse are disproportionately high among the homeless population, the increase in homelessness over the past two decades cannot be explained by addiction alone. Many people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs never become homeless, but people who are poor and addicted are clearly at increased risk of homelessness. Addiction does increase the risk of displacement for the precariously housed; in the absence of appropriate treatment, it may doom one’s chances of getting housing once on the streets. Homeless people often face insurmountable barriers to obtaining health care, including addictive disorder treatment services and recovery supports. Source
The prevalence of mental illness and substance use among those experiencing homelessness is clear, but Kushel cautions that the vast majority of mental illness among the study participants is anxiety and depression. It’s likely the lack of resources exacerbates those conditions, rather than the illness causing the homelessness, she says.
“I think that the driving issue is clearly the deep poverty, that the median [monthly] household income for everyone in the household in the six months before homelessness was $960, in a state with the highest housing costs in the country,” she says. Other studies have noted that the end of pandemic stimulus payments and rising inflation has led to rents outpacing wages. The study notes that in 2023, California had only 24 units of affordable housing available for every 100 extremely low-income households.Source
Just because you know one or two people that were homeless and also had problems with addiction, doesn’t mean the addiction caused their homelessness.
So you were totally lying when you said 99.999 percent were homeless for reasons other than money.
It wasn’t me that said that, and that’s not what they said.
Edit: I should really refresh the page if I’m going to spend so long reading the sources.
Sorry was not you. Point being stands though. Your source does not help his post but negates it.
1K a month is pretty trivial compared to the cost of all the public money used to punish them (e.g cops). Even if you don’t care about the humanity aspect at all UBI makes sense just from a pure numbers perspective.
But think of all the money prisons will lose!
I know it’s a popular sentiment, because private prisons are so in-your-face evil, but they’re not as ubiquitous as the population seems to believe.
Twenty-seven states and the federal government incarcerated 96,370 people in private prisons in 2021, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.
Yes, that’s too many. Yes, we need to ban these things at the federal level. But let’s not forget the grift from state and local prisons, in many cases worse because they can’t be as readily audited.
Don’t forget healthcare and existing social security!
$1,000/mo. is not UBI, not like it’s usually discussed. I’d go for widening this program, let’s keep the experiment rolling until it pans out or collapses.
Rent is only high because of artificial scarcity of real estate. The scarcity only exists because building new housing is decided neither by supply and demand nor central government planning, but by the people who accumulate more capital if housing isn’t built.
Wow.
Can’t wait for this to never roll out nationwide at the Federal level.
OK, so you’re telling me that giving money to people who need it, is better than giving it to rich people?
I am Wage Slaves inner shocked pikachu. Same thing, just more sarcastic and massive eye brows.
“Those damn homeless and injuns get EVERYTHING for free”
-my racist and jaded ass coworker
I think my biggest problem with these tests (not the idea of UBI) is that they go entirely based on what the recipients say. There’s not really any indication that fact checking is done to confirm they actually are living somewhere now, or they did get their cars fixed, etc.
I’m confident that the money helped, because obviously it would, but I wish we could get some actual solid data on how much it helped. The cynic in me believes that desperate people getting 1000$/mo will embellish how much it helps in order to keep getting the money, when in reality they need 1500$ or 2000$ to afford housing in Denver.
I’m not sure what definition of UBI you’re using, but not all forms of UBI need to cover the entirety of living expenses. UBI is just having income without strings attached. This very study is showing that even small amounts of money can help people get out of shitty situations.
Also as someone who lives in Dever, it’s not that expensive. Sure $1500+ is what you’ll pay around LoDo, but there are plenty of cheaper places.
Isn’t that like… Objectively wrong?
Dear Faust, even in Soviet Union idea of studio apartments were too cringe, so normal apartments were used for mass housing.
People without money mostly need money.
Somehow this is surprising and confusing… primarily to people who cannot imagine change.
the Pew Charitable Trust wrote in a recent analysis that research had “consistently found that homelessness in an area is driven by housing costs.”
Well, yeah, and we can thank investors, landlords and capital funds for that. Housing in Denver is ridiculously expensive currently… and it was bad but not to this extent a few years ago. A house next door to me that was $250k and $1000 a month a few years ago is now $450 and $2100 a month.
Houses in the Netherlands have increased on average like 33% since 2018. Not made up numbers. They’ve gotta go down this is so unaffordable for starters.
“No shit”
Poverty is a lack of money, that’s it. Tax the rich, help the poor, grow the middle class.
I wonder if rent would go up if ubi became a thing
That depends on the housing market. If you have a surplus in housing, rent will remain stable because tenants will move if their landlord increases rent.
If you have a deficit in housing and more people look for a place to stay than there are available places, then tenants cannot move. Landlords and other businesses in deficit markets like healthcare will take all additional income.
I’d love to show this to people who say “but lazy people will be getting paid for nothing” or “competition is human nature” that capitalists made the fuck up, but it’ll probably go over their heads, or they’ll conveniently say that the test was not done properly
Who would pledge 10% of their income to distribute as basic income? There is no need to wait until politicians implement it. We can start immediately.
Don’t be absurd. Systemic change is needed. Not individual charity.
What’s your plan for systemic change? If you have none, why not try systemic individual charity?
The average citizen will have to pay for UBI with taxes. Why not do it voluntarily?
What’s your plan for systemic change?
Tax the rich, redistribute wealth, stop treating basic human needs such as shelter and healthcare as profit generators.
If you have none
I did. Stop making stupid assumptions.
why not try systemic individual charity?
Please learn what words mean. There is no “systemic individual” anything.
The average citizen will have to pay for UBI with taxes. Why not do it voluntarily?
Because it doesn’t work, you walnut.
You don’t have a plan, you have a wish list. How do you want to achieve your list?
Using insults doesn’t refute my points. Why not coordinate as citizens?
You don’t have a plan, you have a wish list. How do you want to achieve your list?
I’m sorry, you expect anyone who disagrees with you on social media to write you a thesis on restructuring society, or you just ignore them?
It’s obvious that you just want to disregard what people have to say.
You haven’t actually written anything of substance, but I have to effortpost for you? Lol, bite me.
Using insults doesn’t refute my points.
You don’t have any points.
Why not coordinate as citizens?
Why do you think it hasn’t already worked? Why do you think charity hasn’t already accomplished what you say it will accomplish?
Perhaps because it doesn’t actually achieve systemic change. Because the people hoarding wealth do not voluntarily distribute it.
Maybe because the people who hoard wealth are like everybody else and too few want to share? Why expect the billionaires to share if normal people don’t share?
Right now is the first time in history since city state times that the citizens can talk and vote together.
If people choose to share their income, they can do it now. The debate hasn’t happened yet.
Maybe because the people who hoard wealth are like everybody else and too few want to share?
So then why are you suggesting voluntary charity if you know it doesn’t actually work? Are you being deliberately dense?
If people choose to share their income, they can do it now. The debate hasn’t happened yet.
It has happened, just because your head is wedged so firmly up your own ass that you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
