butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It's actually all the stuff that they keep/take from us that should be called benefits.
Basic Income
- Thread starter Fez909
- Start date
So would I, sweetie, but it's not what I can afford to do while in receipt of benefits.
BTW they are called benefits, because in the beginning they were drawn from the money paid into National Insurance. The payout you receive when making a claim on insurance, used to be (and still is?) referred to as "a benefit".
ska invita
back on the other side
Exactly! And this has the potential to be a bit of long overdue payback
Fez909
toilet expert
That's the problem with being a capitalist. Eventually you run out of other people's money to steal.
Kilgore Trout
Active Member
Isn't that socialism?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
bi0boy
Power User
A poll tax rebate?
Treacle Toes
Time
Just saw this pop up though I have not had a chance to read it yet.
Six Reasons Why Universal Basic Income is a Bad Idea #dabf
Six Reasons Why Universal Basic Income is a Bad Idea #dabf
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
Makes some good points pocket money for the well off and manacles for the poor.
I had a long chat with a friend about this the other night, haven't exactly done any rigorous scholarship but we came to the conclusion that basic income could potentially set off a chain of events leading to the abolition of capitalism.
1 - Would lead to an explosion of leisure time, due to job shares etc, opening up the possibility of new forms of grassroots level solidarities and organisation, that previously people didn't have time for.
2 - Would precipitate a kind of automation revolution. The tech exists to automate a lot of menial service jobs, but it isn't implemented because of fears of PR disasters which would be ameliorated by basic income, leading to a cumulative increase in unemployment.
3 - The final scenario of masses of materially comfortable unemployed with lots of time on their hands, with historically unprecedented education levels and capacity for mobilisation, existing alongside a tiny, super-rich capitalist class who employ very few people but own all the productive apparatus, would inevitably lead to demands for democratic public ownership of the means of production.
Might be just daydreaming, but at the very least, the dependency on waged labour for survival has got to go at some point, and basic income seems a practical way to do it in the short term, and I think it would be a huge game changer.
1 - Would lead to an explosion of leisure time, due to job shares etc, opening up the possibility of new forms of grassroots level solidarities and organisation, that previously people didn't have time for.
2 - Would precipitate a kind of automation revolution. The tech exists to automate a lot of menial service jobs, but it isn't implemented because of fears of PR disasters which would be ameliorated by basic income, leading to a cumulative increase in unemployment.
3 - The final scenario of masses of materially comfortable unemployed with lots of time on their hands, with historically unprecedented education levels and capacity for mobilisation, existing alongside a tiny, super-rich capitalist class who employ very few people but own all the productive apparatus, would inevitably lead to demands for democratic public ownership of the means of production.
Might be just daydreaming, but at the very least, the dependency on waged labour for survival has got to go at some point, and basic income seems a practical way to do it in the short term, and I think it would be a huge game changer.
The UK had a form of wage replacement if not basic income prior to 1997 when increased social security conditionality began. It was relatively easy to live cheaply on the dole if you were young and healthy and you'd be mostly left alone to get on with things. What emerged was a small but radical sub-culture that was able to organize effectively, but was completely alienated from the wider working class and dominated by well meaning upper/middle class people who had more resources and were able to establish social dominance through this. The movement as it was failed, and was easily swept away by capital and the state when it became too troublesome.
This isn't true. Where the tech exists and is cheaper than human capital it is being introduced, such as self-scan tills. Even just the threat of the tech is being weaponised against working class organisation - such as self driving tubes. A basic income would be likely to make human capital cheaper, leading to a slow down in automation, or it may just force capital to continue its search elsewhere for cheap labour - it will be a long time, if ever, before a robot is cheaper than a child worker in a very poor country. People are already the ultimate robots to serve other people, and they are cheap. Not much more than 100 years ago it was normal to own a couple in the basement if you were middle class.
Automation will continue to place some pressure on job availability I think, that is likely to result in a downgrading of many jobs to precarious status, that's what's happened so far, plus wide scale structural unemployment - we've got that already as well. It's only if a Basic Income has an impact on the workforce on the demand side - in that people refuse to do shit jobs - that it may impact on capital. There are so many ways capital might respond to that though - from flight, to increased costs of essential services or housing, to simply the removal of the basic income. Under current conditions affordability is a factor for a basic income, the rich will have to pay, without a significant or revoltionary re-organisation of class relations that won't last for long.
This assumes that automation will eliminate work in a timeframe that is worth bothering with, which is unlikely. That a basic income will result in masses of materially comfortable people is also unlikely - what is materially comfortable? The average household income is over £30 grand a year and lots of those people would say they are not materially comfortable. Look at the price of housing. The point at which material comfort is reached and the Basic Income begins to be reduced/removed would have to be set very high to maintain even current standards for the majority of people. At this point the tax take looks wobbly. Are the glocal super rich going to pay for all of this? And own all the tech? At which point their dominance is complete, they own us, Robocop and everything in the world. That doesn't look like a revolutionary scenario to me.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
I remember earlier in the year there was an american state where a push for a higher min wage was going on- big billboard posters were run by interests opposed showing ipad type interfaces and warning fast food workers that 'this can do your job' if you vote the wrong way.
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
The forward-thinking maniacs of Vermont probably.
I'm not particularly invested in this idea, what I posted above was the product of a few hours chatting only semi-seriously over some beers. Nevertheless, I'm going to defend it for the sake of developing my thoughts on basic income.
The situation before 1997 isn't the same as basic income though, because as you said the "small, radical subculture" was completely alienated from the wider working class. Giving everyone basic income is different because there would be no stigma. Longish periods of unemployment punctuating periods of casual, short term employment would be standard for a lot of people.
And what does it mean to be alienated from the wider working class these days? The moment when revolution through workplace organisation was possible probably died with the 1970s. The conditions that gave rise to that form of labour organisation - long term employment alongside masses of co-workers - simply don't exist anymore. Employment is too precarious, people switch jobs too often, workplaces have smaller workforces who tend to be geographically atomised. Not the same as a factory town where everyone meets down the Working Men's Club. Everyone is alienated from everyone, there is no clearly identifiable labour movement to be alienated from anymore. A balance of time and resources - e.g. you could work for 6 months, save a bit, then live off basic income for the rest of the year cutting only a little into your savings - might actually reverse this atomisation as people could use their time to create genuine social, community spaces. Something which does, in fact, require more resources than the dole allows you and more time and energy than working allows you.
By "materially comfortable unemployed" I mean people who are unemployed but a) actually have time to do things without being hounded by the dole office and b) aren't cowed into inactivity by self-blame and shame. I'm thinking less about the direct economic effects and more about how basic income will change things politically and socially. You talk about the cost of housing, but organising a rent strike for example would be a heck of a lot of easier when you have a wide pool of activists who aren't knackered after work in the evening.
I know I'm speculating here and I could be completely wrong, but with regards to automation, basic income could create a shift in paradigm where there is pressure from below to invest more in automation (because people wouldn't fear unemployment, so they would be more motivated to find ways to make their jobs easier) offset by a demand for companies to contribute a greater share of profits in tax. Basically what I'm imagining is basic income having a transformative effect politically. Once it becomes normalised, the fact that everyone benefits from it and to greater or lesser degrees depend on it would change the nature of political discourse and political demands. A precedent would be set for the socialisation of production which would be a lot more difficult to frame in terms of scivers and strivers.
The most compelling argument against capitalism to me is that we have growing structural unemployment existing alongside people working ever longer hours, due to the dependency on waged labour for survival. A reduction of time spent working as well as a reduction in unemployment can only be achieved through economic planning, not through market forces, but realistically we aren't going to be able to establish a planned economic system in one go. Planned economies have only ever been established in countries where there has been very little existing infrastructure to begin with, and in a developed nation it is considerably more complicated to set in motion. Basic income, however, is a baby step towards greater socialisation of wealth and more rational planning, and changes the nature of the game significantly. It won't lead to an abolition of capitalism immediately, and in the short term it may well create greater inequalities, but it opens up new possibilities for resistance. Predicting the future is a fool's game, so I could be completely wrong, but equally you could be too. It is at the very least worth considering.
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NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
That article claims that universality is a right wing idea, and uses the example of flat taxes to make the case for its claim. I don't think that argument is comprehensive enough to settle the issue. Universality can be applied as in the flat tax, a one-size-fits-all solution that creates more problems than it solves. But it can also be more flexible in its application, as with the NHS (or at least as the NHS used to be). Even these days a considerable majority of people use the NHS rather than private healthcare providers if this chart is any indication. So on that basis I wouldn't be so quick to condemn universality as an entirely right wing idea.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I know where he's coining from - under capitalism universality may well be our best defence (or ground for extension) of aspects of the social wage though. The way he puts it verges on a demand for needs testing under current conditions.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If only he didn't sack all those state workers who would have got the rise.
ItDidNaeWork
New Member
Wow! That sort of weird propaganda surely must have backfired, right? It's just so out of touch it's bizarre.
Btw, at first glance I could have sworn the text at the bottom left said "Paid for by the exploitative policies institute"
Why would that be standard? This is an assumption that doesn't stand up to any recent comparisons, from trials into basic income style schemes which show little impact on work participation to the UK's own experience with the introduction of the welfare state. Unless a basic income were set very high, and living costs didn't rise to accommodate that (which they would) then I expect there would be very little difference.
See here you're just arguing for more/better dole. I agree but I don't think it would have the transformative impact you're looking for. I think it would be a lot like it was last time. Perhaps even there would be space for the sub-culture to crystallise into something more threatening, although it seems ironic and telling that as DIY/rave/anti-globalisation/90s politics started to mature then the conditions for it to exist were removed.
I don't see how people not fearing unemployment (and people still would) would create pressure to invest in automation. This assumes a basic income would drive wages up, because that's the pressure that matters. I think it would drive wages down. People on benefits right now gain very little financial advantage from moving into low paid work - hence the need for all the other coercion. If people were able to keep most of what they earned without losing a basic income they would be prepared, or able, to work for less, less even than the current minimum wage. And cheap human capital means less pressure to automate.
I'm not sure that's the most compelling argument against capitalism, but I support the development of an anti-work politics, I think it's really fertile and unexplored ground. As the lived experience of work becomes ever more shit for ever more people I think there is a possible seed of revolutionary discontent somewhere in anti-work ideas although I'm not quite sure where it is. I also think pragmatically that there needs to be a counterpoint developed to all the hard working families shite in the here and now, I think celebrating worklessness as a provocation is worth exploring, but that's going to be difficult. And I thnk thats why a basic income bugs me, this assumption that we don't need to win the argument, let alone have a revolution, that we can force capital to gift us something that will create the material conditions for capital's destruction. That didn't happen with the welfare state and it won't happen with a basic income.
Having said all that, the basic income as an anti-poverty measure, in the here and now has some value. But why buy into this crap about universality, which is a myth anyway because you'd take it back off people in tax - and people aren't stupid, they'd realise that. So how about an unconditional minimum income, a threshold below which no-one should fall and which provides a basic quality of life because it is inhumane to have kids who ar hungry or people living in the street. In other words how about a proper social security system, that
would have a transformative impact on the lives of the poorest, is easily affordable, and provides the opt out you want for people to explore alternatives to work. It wouldn't be revolutionary, but its something to build on and would create a space where work, and whether we want to do it anymore, can start to be examined.
Sorry for the very late reply, the point-by-point response format was getting too convoluted. Anyway, Switzerland is voting on universal basic income today, (it looks like they will vote no) which reminded me of the topic.
It seems the root of your opposition to it is that it would drive wages down as people would be prepared to work for less than minimum wage. This may be true, but if a reasonable standard of living is guaranteed regardless, it isn't a disaster in the short term, and there's still room to agitate for change in this area. No doubt the long term implications of it would open up a whole new field of political struggle, one which I think, for reasons already stated, we stand a better chance of winning than we do right now. You say it has little impact on workplace participation based on previous experiments, but there's a difference between small scale tests of a few thousand people and having universal income across an entire society. I think you would definitely see people engaging a lot more in self-actualisation type activities that don't necessarily pay, like volunteer work, but also in the event of a significant political struggle people taking time out to engage in it full time.
The key point is how we deal with the change towards ever increasing automation. In terms of work participation, we never really recovered from de-industrialisation, and now the service sector is slowly but surely heading in the same direction. As you are no doubt aware, any recovery in employment since 2008 is based on part-time, insecure work. I think we've reached a point where we need to accept that this is inevitable and restructure things accordingly. I'm sure you would agree that automation of most menial work is a positive thing - but without universal basic income how would this be possible without creating a kind of humanitarian and economic disaster? You say cheap human labour would create less pressure to automate - again, it is debatable whether human labour would definitely be cheaper, but without a guaranteed basic income automation is overall a pretty bad thing, so saying it would slow down the pace of automation seems like a rather odd argument against it. Even if the pace of automation is slowed down temporarily, (which wouldn't necessarily be the case - there could be political rather than economic pressure to automate certain jobs. A pro-automation labour movement is currently impossible/suicidal without a basic income in place) creating the structural conditions for humanity to genuinely benefit from automation seems like something we have to deal with at some point.
I'm not sure what you mean about an unconditional minimum income as opposed to universal basic income - do you mean legislate that nobody can earn less than a certain amount, whether in terms of dole or wages? How would this be substantially different from universal basic income? Surely that system would also allow employers to pay below minimum wage and have the difference paid by the government? And if minimum wage is literally the same as dole, why bother working at all?
Labour considering making a basic income trial a manifesto pledge... big news?
Labour manifesto could include universal basic income pilot, John McDonnell says
Labour manifesto could include universal basic income pilot, John McDonnell says
ska invita
back on the other side
Itd be at dole levels though IIRC
See this pisses me off about all this stuff. The Compass report this is based on shrugs off housing benefit, not including it in their calculations and saying its complicated and will probably have to remain a means tested benefit. That fucks up all their calculations, means the re-detributive impact won't work, and whats left is something that's a shit basic income that looks a lot like Universal Credit in terms of how much money people will end up with. UC is a negative income tax, which is slightly different to a Basic Income, but only in principle really, in terms of how much money goes into your pocket they can function the same. Most Basic Income proposals seem to assume that higher/mid range earners won't notice that they're just paying it all back in tax. A shit Basic Income set at the rate of the dole, vs an unconditional Universal Credit is barely worth squabbling over, all it will mean is yet more welfare reform and yet more chaos for the people caught up in it. Compass do talk about it being unconditional, thats a step forward, but instead of another grandiose project to keep everyone busy and try make politicians look clever why not just scrap fucking benefit sanctions.
Word!
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