Basic Income: Poverty v. Power

[@MarkoKraguljac]

Sweat, tears and blood of the needy and most desperate lift all boats. Thats our world "economy".

[@cronusjackson6663]

I must say, this is an extremely insightful video that can be easily understood

[@Nexusforce1]

We can empower people and reduced poverty not just by promoting collective bargaining or providing public goods like public health care but also by promoting worker ownership through worker cooperatives.

[@NickGecko]

​@Thomas V. Worm what if, instead of making the workers pay, we just set a minimum target of shares, let's say 15 or 20%, that can be owned only by the company/society itself? Maybe just for places >x employees or >y revenue. It would cost to every owner the same percentage. Of course, it would be a law or nobody would do it. The shares would divide the parts of profit equally among workers(but without each of them being proprietary) and they would be represented in the assembly by some of them or a professional administrator. In this way there would be a big shift in distribution of wealth, the problem of strikes would be reduced, the principle of fairness and meritocracy would be more respected and hopefully productivity could rise because everyone would be more interested in their work results. The other shares would remain as today so there is no reason to think that there would be a reduce of private investments in the medium term, even from foreign countries that don't apply this policy. The only big problem I saw in this would be the risk of a "witch hunting" on present owners.

[@NickGecko]

@@ThomasVWorm no, you are making mistakes. You are presuming that a worker is paid by its contribute in profit by salary. But that's can't be true or there won't be profit at all. If a worker produce 1 in a hour and he works let's say 10 hours per day, then he will produce 10 each day but no owner would pay him 10, it would be an utopian world where the owner doesn't want to make profit. Reality says that the worker will be paid between 2 and 6 according to its role, with a few exceptions in the direction area. Giving them a share of profits would be only good to them. Then, yes a reduction of the salary would impact on their profits and low their general gain. But it's not true that today the reduction of salary impact totally the worker alone? In this way they would be more protected from a crisis situation. Moreover it would be difficult to low wages for a dirigent when 20% of shareholders are the workers. We have thousands of examples under our eyes of the problems of work unions. They can't be anywhere or solve any problem well. Finally, when I talk about distribution of wealth I don't say just among workers and owners, but also among workers group alone. A top manager takes more than 600 times the salary of a worker. This mean that half day it's enough to make a yearly income. And even if we take the average manager, that date move forward of less then a week. If we don't want society get mad and destroy everything it's important to solve these problems.

[@geoffreynhill2833]

@@ThomasVWorm 👍 (Green Fire, UK) 🌈🦉

[@NickGecko]

@Thomas V. Worm you are making confusion by mixing too much topics. First, there is no point in the 80% wanting to lower wages, it happens just in terrible situations. We can consider rigid wages to the bottom (I am not sure if I translated well this line) that means that there won't be any worker or trade union that normally would accept a wage reduction, and to prevent big strikes or protests everyone follow this rule. How could a situation where workers have also 20% of formal decision powers remove this thing? Then in second place, a big company is owned by thousands of people with big shares that hold about 40-42% and a lot of smaller, so to have a majority you should convince a lot of people that your ideas are better, with this logic would be so useful to have workers partecipate to the discussion and influence the voting results. And on the other hand a ceo who doesn't care about 20% (and again, it's a lot) of the shareholders opinion it's fictional, actually he would be motivated to raise more he can wages to be voted again by that slice of voters. Then you make also weak points that I don't want to talk about a lot because are pointless in the topic but growing mean debt is not true because that's true only if you assume that there is no rise in production at all, and less taxes means more spending power to workers but public debt is not totally true. I mean yes but you are forgetting that low taxes means debt OR less services to people, and a lot of times public services give higher value to people that what they would gain with a tax reduction because state services doesn't look for profit so it's important to mark that.

[@The.world.has.gone.crazy...]

@@NickGecko thats communism, and you would need a chain of command or youre company wont work. Some people do harder work, some more intellectual, are they all getting an equal share? It's good in theory, but almost impossible in real life. Humans are humans, and they have emotions and caracters.

[@TheRantingRooster]

A federal job's guaranty would go a long way to addressing poverty, more so than just UBI. Poverty is a policy choice by the ruling elite of society. They need it to exist to provide the "competitive" motivation for the working class to apply for jobs, where the employer, whose c-suite exec's are apart of the ruling elite of society, holds all the cards.

[@vkrgfan]

It’s impossible to maintain existing system and guarantee basics for everyone. Capitalistic system is built on maximization of the profits and wealth, it’s based on exploitation there are no caps on wealth, they need more and it’s never enough.

[@user-eh9jo9ep5r]

it is become obvious that small sample of humans in different areas show good results. And then next step research is to make more quantity sample humans in different countries.

[@msubasic64]

There is a difference between universal basic income provided to all, and an income system you opt into. And you opt into it probably with an understanding that you lose some privacy rights in order to prevent fraud on the system.

[@ahmednadim5859]

It's weird that these people keep categorising basic income or cash transfers as a conservative idea. In Asia cash transfers are opposed because the government is paternalistic (not necessarily out some of collectivist democratic ideal). The world bank proposed cash transfers to the poor to replace fuel subsidies which have historically led to budget shortfalls in the future and these subsidies largely benefit the urban upper middle class in the first place.

[@VBChannel]

How does UBI work in relation to inflation? I still think having basic public services was a better solution. My point is that the price of basic goods may go up quickly and then the UBI will need to keep up continuously so that people can have access to the most basic stuff. And this is gonna be exploited in many ways, like by people not spending the money on healthy and productive things but gambling, drugs, etc. It’s going to deform society now that I think of it and maybe do more harm than good. But the private sector loves it because they can compete for that money, it’s in the free market instead of being controlled by the government. It’s susceptible to being “captured” by advertisement and other ways to manipulate consumer’s behavior.

[@archibaldnoah2787]

You cannot debt-fund it. This would inevitably cause inflation. You have to take it from the rich.

[@Nexusforce1]

You have to keep in mind that the inflation we're experiencing now is mostly the result of profit-taking by companies not because of more money having been injected into the economy. Most of the money that has been injected has gone to Banks who have lent it to corporations and the wealthy which in turn have poured it into stock buy backs and assets and is not circulating in the general economy or people's pockets.

[@kfchotwings]

What you are essentially saying is that if UBI will become part of our social system it would eventually get to the point of where we are...currently, and that is welfare being unevenly distributed. For UBI to work countermeasures against these exploits MUST be considered together with a strict regulatory system for things like tax avoidance. As stated above the most wealthiest should give their fair share back to society. We can't deny the fact they are the leading reason UBI as a social system is a good consideration. It’s not like people are asking much, only a fair chance at living an okay life.

[@marianhunt8899]

I think that is the whole point of the plan. The quality of all the necessities, water, food, healthcare will continue to decline as profit will be the primary motive as it always is when a service is privatised.

[@geoffreynhill2833]

🤔👍(Green Fire, UK) 🌈🦉

[@lorenzoskyhawk]

And you believe what you say .... Have you actually travelled and seen the reality of the have nots

[@rfmckean]

Interesting but I am not sure that democracy is the magic solution. Referenda are examples of "direct democracy" that IMO fail. Proportional Representation support authoritarianism sometimes. When we say we want the general public to initiate policy don't we mean policies that are vetted by "experts" or guardians and isn't that a very different thing than what is implied by democracy? Nimbyism is not a solution to shelter needs.

[@-sw9ls]

Uhmmm counter exploded.

[@brettburnside1457]

What if every American over 20 years of age gets as many thousands per year and increasing $1,000 with every birthday? That way, someone who is 80 is guaranteed 80K per year when they need it most for healthcare, housing, etc. Perhaps eliminate those who make over a certain amount along with other restrictions. AND adults get birthday's back! 🎂😃💸

[@The.world.has.gone.crazy...]

Or you good just get a healthcare system like in Europe.

[@nedim_guitar]

​@@The.world.has.gone.crazy...The European healthcare system has been commercialised since the 90's. Austerity has forced the healthcare system to become more efficient, but it has also drained resources and made the healthcare actually worse.

[@The.world.has.gone.crazy...]

@@nedim_guitar there is no set "european " healthcare system, every country has its own. In my country it works just fine. We have set pricing so the drug company's just cant overcharge. The state regulates that.

[@fcog9525]

What is strongly ignored (and I hope is not deliberate) is the fact that people don't tend to decide rationally, so when Basic Income might be exercise, rather than spending it on health or education, it will surely be spent on cars and phones and other useless "goods"...

[@parallaxcrafttale]

“Useless” one could argue if it was paid for by taxing the wealthy, it would actually serve as a base floor of activity for the economy. That doesn’t just mean spending on essentials as we think of them. But if there are public ways of bringing down prices in the essentials in particular (public systems that can bargain down prices, create competition to bring down private costs, price controls for specific industries) then I think it’s a net positive for the economy.