Are you in support of UBI?
Are you in support of UBI?
Hello, I'm not that informed about UBI, but here is my arguement:
Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn't companies just subside the income by raising their prices? Also, do you believe capatilism can co-exist with UBI?
Here's a good breakdown: https://econreview.studentorg.berkeley.edu/unboxing-universal-basic-income/
As for my thoughts, yes there would be a noticeable impact at first, but UBI would help stabilise and strengthen the economy in the long term because purchasing power and demand will increase. If supply can keep up, prices won't go up. Companies can't just raise prices as that's called price fixing. Antitrust laws should be there to prevent that, but your mileage may vary depending on your country. That means that if some companies decide to raise prices because of more purchasing power, some smart company is going to charge less to gain more market share. So we're still doing capitalism, but there's a social safety net.
Also, people will still go to work to find purpose. Except "work" in this case could mean the freedom and flexibility to contribute locally, or take higher risks like entrepreneurship or becoming an artist.
My pie in the sky hope for UBI is that it would be large enough so that you don't need to work to live, maybe with some frugality.
At that point I'd be fine with scrapping minimum wage altogether. Companies would have to offer a job/salary that attracts people who aren't desperate.
It would be much easier to quit a job. And I think it would broadly increase the value of labor. Automation would increase, but that wouldn't be a problem, because its no longer a problem to be unemployed.
I'm a fan of UB I+S. Universal basic income AND universal basic services. Plus
highthigh taxes for the rich. And workplace democracy. And a massive shift of the economy to the nonprofit sector: if what yourcompanymultimillion corporation is providing is a utility, you can't have making a profit be your fiduciary responsibility.Basically, fuck capitalism, I want socialism.
Let's say 50k is average income
Basic income is 10k
The average person would get 10k in UBI but pay 10k more in taxes
They will have 50k dollars
Someone that makes 100k would get the 10k in UBI but would have to pay 20k more in taxes.
They will have 90k dollars
Someone making 15k (federal min wage) would get 10k in UBI and pay nothing in taxes
They will have 25k dollars
This is simplified, but the idea is that all three people still made 165k combined. Just the person at the bottom got some help.
UBI does not increase the total amount of money in the economy. Just moves it from the rich to the poor.
The average person is still going to have the same spending power
UBI only exists to solve a problem of capitalism. Other systems could have a UI like communism. But it's the flaws of capitalism that needs it to correct itself.
Social programs exist in capitalism and have existed for years. They are just a complex way of solving a basic problem. "How do we get poor people money?"
Personally, I'd be for UBMI (Universal Bare Minimum Income). Everyone should be provided bare minimum from the society. Food, water, shelter, etc. If you can afford to pay it back, great, if you can't, that's fine too. But when people talk about UBI it's always "how much??". And it should be the bare minimum to survive and not be forced to run the capitalism rat race. If you're content to sit in a small shelter and eat 3 meals a day, the government should give it to you. The government gives it to people who break the law and are no where near as deserving
My stance on this is that if a machine can do the work of a hundred men, then ninety-nine men should be able to retire early with pay. Anything else is theft.
So, yes, I support UBI, and no, I don't think it would break capitalism. It's the same amount of money being put into circulation, just for less work.
In my mind, a UBI would replace a lot of welfare and retirement programs and would absorb much of their budget. What would we need the whole food stamps system for if we guarantee everyone an income? What would we need social security for if you have your Universal Basic Income?
Since it's universal, we can do away with all those systems we have to make sure you "deserve" it. We can eliminate entire data centers, close entire offices. Those people (mostly office worker accountant types) can go work in some other part of the government like school systems, the FDA, the FAA, something that actually helps make society go. That should free up some budget.
Do an actual goddamn audit of the Pentagon, if we find some bullshit pet projects we don't actually need costing taxpayers billions of dollars we bust a general down to recruit and find or invent a way for him to die for his country.
Capitalism may not be able to survive alongside a UBI but I think a largely free market economy can. I'll always have my housing and food needs bet but I'd like to have an Xbox so I'll go get a job to get money to pay for one.
do you believe capatilism can co-exist with UBI?
UBI might be the only thing that can save capitalism.
Your theory about companies raising prices to offset UBI is actually undercut by historical and present evidence.
There was a time when the United States had welfare. The United States still has food stamps. But nobody is seriously pretending that these things did or do drive up grocery prices.
Similarly, over time various states have raised minimum wage, and if your argument were accurate, then the prices in those states would have immediately risen to match minimum wage, but they didn't.
In other words, you're repeating a conservative talking point that has been repeatedly debunked by reality. I think you could try to improve your argument by arguing that inflation happens across the board, to everything, and therefore it would also happen to UBI. But what we've actually seen is that's not true.
As long as UBI covers basic living expenses, then yes I would support it. Capitalism, as it exists in the west, is not sustainable and if it continues as is, there is probably going to be massive employment issues within a generation as common working people without specialized degrees and can't afford to get them will be unemployable due to automation, AI and robots completing most common labor jobs cheaper and more efficiently.
I know the pushback against UBI is that if you take away the need for people to work to live, most people won't work... and honestly I'm okay with that. I doubt there would a be serious decline in people seeking work because if you can still earn extra income for luxuries and nicer things over what UBI would cover... why wouldn't you? And those who are content to sit at home or not work, is fine by me. Because I've worked with a lot of people over the years who only have a job because someone told them they needed a job. They were miserable fucking people to be around and we were more productive the days they called in sick or skipped. Some people should be paid to stay the fuck at home, and society would be a better place for it.
I am on principle because what the fuck is the point of all this industrialisation and technology development if we aren't trying to break out of the cycle of scarcity?
As for how it can be properly funded: fuck knows.
not a 100% ubi fan, BUT, the times, they are a changing - and I firmly believe every robot deployed should have to offset ubi. every AI cycle should drive ubi funding.
Trained on the involuntary corpus of millions if not billions of people, it must benefit society overall otherwise we're going to destroy everything.
UBI doesn't mean everybody has more money. It comes from somewhere.
The poor will have more, the rich will have less, the middle will have about the same.
One of those three does not want UBI to be a thing, and they're trying to convince the other two.
Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn't companies just subside the income by raising their prices?
As someone planning on starting a B2B company, I don't see a problem with that. If companies make a ton of money, tax companies more and redistribute again. The curve can be made to fit.
But there's a bigger reason for doing UBI: It's cheaper and more effective than existing welfare. And more people will like it.
At first, maybe. But that's the neat thing about capitalism and the free market: the first to lower their prices again has a huge advantage. There's always an incentive to operate at minimal profit.
Why wouldn't UBI and capitalism be able to coexist? It makes MORE capitalism possible, as it were, expanding its principles of supply and demand to fields such as employment. Right now, people need a job, any job, and if there's no job that fulfills your needs, tough - you take the shitty one and you'll like it. With a UBI, you could shop around for the perfect job, choosing the best offer, or not "buy" at all right now because the market doesn't offer what you want and it's not like you're going to starve without a job. Employers would be forced to make YOU an offer that YOU can accept and if they can't operate under these circumstance, tough. Capitalism in a nutshell, really.
Yes.
Yes.
The whole competition for who has more money because that means they are more successful and thus far be superior over others is... Stupid
I support UBI.
But then we should also change the way job contracts work. Because currently, "work" is mostly considered to be some 40 hour stressful thing.
Yes I’m in favor of UBI.
I think capitalism would survive just fine with UBI.
I don’t think prices would automatically cancel out the money, because prices are still subject to competition.
As for whether people would still work after their basic needs are met, obviously. The evidence is people who are beyond subsistence and still seeking more money.
I assume you don't believe in capitalism then. Because you suggestion is that the companies set the prices rather than the market. Anyway im for it because if done properly to should cover just needs. food and housing essentially. and it should replace all forms of cash assitance. welfare, disability, social security, unemployment. since anyone doing well would pay as much additional tax as they get or more then it just becomes something that helps when you need it. Lose your job and you immediately look for work not muck around with applying for unemployment because its always there. Get injured and you immediately have it. Can't work due to age and its there. work part time and its there to help if you can't handle 40 hours for whatever reason. have a kid, go back to school. Go to college and you have the funds to pay for the dorms and just need to worry about actual tuition.
Companies will raise their prices (to "what the market can bear"), but they will never be able to raise prices enough to offset the positive effects of UBI. It's not like your internet bill is going to go up by $2000/month if they suddenly know you're getting $2000/month in UBI. Your typical person makes purchases from dozens of different companies. An increase of "what the market can bear" won't be all that much.
And afterward, the effective purchasing power of the vast majority of people will have increased - most noticeably for those who currently have nothing / very little. Least noticeably for those who are reasonably well off already. And for those who are currently doing extremely well off, their purchasing power will end up dropping.
Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about and I made all numbers in this message up.
Yes... BUT I'd actually encourage people to consider an even better alternative, which is Universal Basic Services.
As you point out, giving people money is no guarantee that their spending power will be enough to cover their needs. I've heard it said that any UBI which is sufficient is unaffordable, and any that is affordable is insufficient. I think it's still a policy we should experiment with, and I think even a small UBI could elevate poverty. But a more effective alternative is to try and provide essentials directly, free of cost.
What this looks like is publicly owned housing; a robust, fully-funded public education system that includes pre-K and higher ed; universal healthcare; and free food. Some of these -- like housing and food -- sound shocking and difficult, but to an earlier generation, so would the others. And we already have some of these programs for the very poor. The key to executing them is to bypass markets. Markets will always raise the cost of essentials because the demand is unlimited. Instead of paying private landlords for housing, the state or non-profit entities need to own the homes. There will still be costs associated with maintenance, but there need be no dividends or investor profits. Same with food. We might not be able to make everything in a grocery store free. But if you have well-run local gardens, they'll actually produce a substantial amount of food that you can just put in baskets by the entrance and let people take from.
Unlike UBIs, which are inherently inflationary, UBS programs are deflationary. By offering free goods they create competition against market prices and make the stuff people still pay for (with a UBI) cheaper.
If you'd like to see how all of this works, go check out the tabletop RPG my friends developed at c/fullyautomatedrpg, or the world guide for the setting at https://fullyautomatedrpg.com/resources.
Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn't companies just subside the income by raising their prices?
Not necessarily. Companies need to set prices they can compete with. Customers might just go to the competitor otherwise.
This is provided that there is competition. Monopolies can set the prices how they want, because there’s no competition.
Yes-ish. While there are some good results from small scale tests, I'd argue that the effect it'd have on a macro level isn't fully understood. I'm all for testing it out large scale so we can get some reliable data there as well. And if it turns out that it doesn't result in inflation or corpos eating up the extra, then I'm all for it.
UBI is the only solution to our corrupt politics. It disempowers the state and empowers individuals. You can stop relying on promises from fake heroes to help the poor, and completely eliminate poverty and crime.
AI and robotics is often cited as a catalyst for UBI. But it is deeply connected to political corruption. Our asshats will tell you that tech oligarchy deserves all our money, and nationalism means our weapons, oil oligarchs need to be given the rest of our money, and what little US manufacturing there is, needs to be protected so that you pay through the nose for stuff. All of this is BS. Let robotics/AI/China deliver us cheap stuff, and UBI afford not only to buy the cheap stuff, but let us have our time freed up in order to design/sell even more productively made stuff/tech that can improve the lives of those who will pay us for it.
UBI does not stop the rich from getting richer. It grows economy significantly, and all money trickles up to the rich. UBI does disempower the rich from stealing your money, through war and war posturing. AI, without UBI, needs to be weaponized as national security that includes the same media disinformation on your tolerance for warmongering empire that makes you/us poorer.
Every disgusting demonic evil inflicted on Americans by politicians is entirely the result of oppression and fearmongering to support unethical evil out of fear of homelessness, and healthcare access. You cannot support a sustainable world if society is on the verge of collapse and there is some war you idiotically are made to tolerate. Misery gives you no time to cure your stupidity. UBI frees us all into doing something useful instead desperately clinging to a job that does not produce anything worthwhile or competitive. 5 recruiter calls per day offering you a better job cures your stupidity.
I don't like the idea of of subsidizing demand, but i'll take anything at this point
A few days ago, I saw a post about negative income tax which is something that had occurred to me independently. Wasn't surprised to learn that someone with more brains had actually given it some serious thought and that it had an actual name.
That would be the sort of thing I'd be interested in being implemented, so that those who are on little to no income - especially those who can't simply "get a (better) job" for whatever reason - don't fall below the poverty line.
This is not to say that the UK benefits system (where I am) doesn't work at all, but it's often coupled with the expectation of getting the recipient back into work or to getting a better job where you don't need them any more.
It would be nice if that part went away.
UBI would have some inflationary effects, but if you stuck it through, it would be less than the UBI payment in the first place.
The problem is getting people to stick to it because unfortunately, for Americans, if you give them $2000 a month in UBI but their purchasing power doesn’t go up by what they perceive as what $2000 is worth; they will punish you in the next election.
I think the expanded child tax credit in 2020 could be a good example to follow for what the roll out of UBI would look like. But we let it expire despite it lifting so many kids out of poverty even if just temporarily and freaked out about inflation so hard that I have my doubts that our American society would ever have the fortitude to be able to implement a permanent UBI
That's the same logic opponents of raising the minimum wage use to justify their position
Are you in support of UBI?
I don't think that it's a terribly interesting question as a yes-or-no question for all UBI policies.
The thing about UBI is that the devil is in the details: UBI covers a broad range of policies. You really need to know the specifics of a proposal to know what it entails; UBI policies may be very different.
For example, there are a number of left-wing groups who like the idea of UBI, because they see it as a way to redistribute wealth. Normally, they tend to want something like keeping spending policy more-or-less where it is, adding UBI, and increasing taxes on some groups that they'd like to shift wealth from.
There are also a number of small-government right-wing groups who like the idea of UBI, because they see it as a way to reduce the role of government in setting purchasing decisions. Normally, they tend to want something more like a revenue-neutral form of UBI; there, one does something like cutting spending policy (on various forms of subsidy, say, like for food or housing) by $N and then shifting that $N to UBI so people can choose how to spend it. Here's a right-libertarian take on UBI:
https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income
Of course, as with any policy proposal, the details matter a lot. And the Swiss proposal is problematic in a number of ways. For starters, 2,800 USD a month means that a married couple could get $67,200 per year for doing nothing. And while it’s true that Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of per capita income, that’s still an awful lot of money. Furthermore, the Swiss proposal seems to involve implementing a basic income in addition to their currently existing welfare system. Few libertarians would be willing to sign up for that deal. But as a replacement for traditional welfare programs, there is a lot for libertarians to like about a basic income.
So, okay, both our wealth-redistribution guys on the left and our small-government guys on the right are talking about UBI policies...but they are talking about policies with very different implications due to the specifics of the policy. The left-wing guy probably isn't especially excited about the form of UBI that the right-wing guy wants, and the right-wing guy probably doesn't like the form of UBI that the left-wing guy wants. So I'd really need to know the specifics of a given UBI policy before I could say whether I think it's a good idea; I wouldn't just be across-the-board in favor of or against any UBI implementation, but would need to see a specific UBI proposal and consider it individually.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I feel like it's less about whether the process will go up or if capitalism can survive with it. I in feel that it's going to be necessary for humans to function. With population increasing, and jobs actually decreasing from technology for the first time in human history, from businesses automating stuff or self check out counters, we're just not going to have a job for every single person out there.
I heard an idea once about making minimum wage 0$ and giving everyone a liveabke UBI. That would mean that nobody is required to participate in the workforce, meaning that employers who can't afford to pay their workers a good wage would be priced out of the market rather than being able to prey upon peoples need for, y'know, money (which can be exchanged for goods and services). A very appealing idea for a 16 year old boy, and the only issue I see with it now is extreme specialisation in the workforce leading to less competition between different workplaces for similar jobs.
Yes, if it is a tax on speculation, investments, and gambling. I can get behind it being a trickle down system that the wealthy can't opt out of.
Yes
It's an interesting idea but I'd like to see it tried somewhere else on a large scale first.
You could cut down or outright remove various government assistance programs so there would not necessarily be more money for the poor, just not a bureaucracy to figure out if you qualify for this and that assistance.
Yes, it could coexist. Not sure why you'd think it would not. I still want more than a cubicle apartment and cheapest food.
Yes
Here's what I say about UBI. We may not need it today, but we better figure it out because we'll need it someday. As an example, take a look at America in 1800. 95%+ of people worked in agriculture. With tractors, the cotton gin, etc. all those careers will be eliminated. The cotton gin of tomorrow is autonomous vehicles, robots and/or drones. Jobs like delivery driver, cashier, etc are all on borrowed time. If we don't figure out some new economic framework before that time, our society is toast. All the "unskilled" jobs that served as on-ramps to more advanced employment will literally be wiped off the face of the Earth.
Of course, America being America, we'll treat this like climate change. Deny deny deny, even when it starts actively harming you. By the time someone tries to solve it, we'll all be screwed.
Yes.
I'm going to wait and see - there are always unintended consequences and sometime those are bad enough to kill and otherwise good idea. Other times they mean you need to tweak with the simple program to make it work. And as always politicians will have their hand in the whole thing and might completely mess up the implementation until it looks nothing like the name.
I've soured on it recently, if you gave everyone $1000 a month then your landlord is just going to raise your rent by $1000.
If full socialism is out of the picture, and we could enact something like UBI I think we should expand disability and social security for those who can't work and then do a universal guaranteed jobs program for those who can work because:
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It's way more politically viable. It's going to be almost impossible to convince a majority of Americans to "pay people to sit around all day". They'd be way more open to it if they're doing a job.
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We could use the labor on fields that the market doesn't value, such as building green infrastructure or social work for low income individuals. This would go along with expanding the definition of a job to any work that is benefiting society. If you're a parent spending all your time caring for a young or disabled child then that's a job and you should get paid for it.
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It you increase the wage for these guaranteed jobs that effectively raises the minimum wage since the private employers have to compete with the government. Why work at McDonald's for $10 an hour when the government is paying $15. If you raise UBI that may decrease wages as employers will use it as an excuse to pay less.
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Even for people making above minimum wage it gives the worker more bargaining power since your employer loses the threat of throwing you onto the streets. This is also true for UBI but only if it's enough to fully cover a comfortable life which I don't think will happen due to the inflation it may cause.
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It increases production which can help to increase supply and cover for the increase in demand giving people that much money will cause so inflation is checked more.
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People neeed a job, as in the expanded definition I gave above, it's a big part of how people make meaning in there life. The best case for someone not working would be they just play video games all day, worst case they turn to drug use.
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Yes, I am in support of UBI.
I support it. It's an insanely expensive policy though and should be implemented carefully and be based on income. An example would be:
- No income $1000 a month
- Min wage $500 a month
Combined with better tax policies that don't tax poor people. Health, education and other basic services should be almost free while having a strong social housing programme.
This way nobody gets priced out of living and there's still plenty of incentive to get a job while having some funds to invest in hygiene and clothing to land the job.
This amount and threshold should be increased in the future.
I really support UBI since you can better model the demand curve with externalities instead of making things free while having it accessible to poor people. Free school might be too low of a cost when calculating benefits to the individual and society so giving people money to afford a heavily subsidised cost would allow for more accurate economics.
I tend to support it because who says no to free money, but I'm not informed enough to form a strong opinion one way or another.
Everyone gets some sort of income, but wouldn’t companies just subside the income by raising their prices? Also, do you believe capatilism can co-exist with UBI?
Kinda defeat the purpose, because a UBI is supposed to support a decent, respectable livelihood. So the higher their prices are, the more taxes they'll have to pay, to support a higher UBI. You cant have UBI without capitalism, because capitalism creates the conditions where a UBI is necessary.
and yes, I do. Companies are moving towards full automation, all the more possible with the advent of AI.. and they are doing that explicitly to fire human employees to save costs. There will soon be a time where there wont be enough jobs for people, Which will be a fork in the road of incredible civil unrest, violence, and possible war... or a UBI so people can live with dignity, freed from the labors of capitalism by automation.
Be aware that UBI needs to go in hand with other reforms that can finance it, eliminating things like tax evasion via donations, and certain foundations that exploit those
Yes, full support from me. Multiple localized tests of UBI have been shown to drastically improved people's lives. I think there are multiple other measures that would need to be put in place too in order to help minimize corporations just obliterating it's usefulness by raising prices.
I'm not as informed as I'd like to be, but my understanding is that things like VAT taxes can help get around online retailers like Amazon dodging taxes, as well as CEO to base worker pay ratio caps to ensure the people in a company that are actually producing the profits get rewarded for doing so. The CEOs could keep giving themselves raises, but it would come with the requirement of actually giving everyone in the company a raise too, which, quite frankly, is what should happen when your employees do a good enough job to bring in record profits.
My understanding is that Alaska already has something similar in nature to a UBI where every citizen gets a dividend from the state each year based on taxes collected from certain businesses. This is a dim recollection from me and I am probably completely mistating how it works/where the money comes from.
The trajectory we're headed we're going to need it or something like it.
With improvements to AI and physical automation there will be a metric fuckton of people out of employment completely and there are only so many jobs for the rebuttal of "the people will still need to maintain the robots and check the AI"
Unfortunately with our concept of ownership there will be massive resistance to it as "I own the machines that make the products/increase productivity, why should you get anything from my profit?" They're going to have to relearn the lesson Ford learned about "well paid employees are your customers" the hard way.
As it stands, at least in America, "The Century Of The Self" has lead to a complete atomization of society, every business is entirely independent from society, every individual is separate from society, so each individual owner won't see the need for a well paid workforce/population at the owners "expense" actually being beneficial to their own existence. They'll think "someone else" should deal with that issue, or worse "pull yourself up from your bootstraps" :/
Maybe depending on the situation, and whether or not we can properly tax those who need to pay for most of it.
If it continues as it is now, with corporate entities and billionaires paying nearly nothing in taxes, I wouldn't support it. It only alienates the upperclass who we want on our side. Millionaires compared to billionaires is a similar scale to min wage workers to millionaires. We need to make it clear we are not after the 1%, but the 0.1%.
In addition to a UBI there needs to be some kind of price control. Otherwise I would fear that it'd simply subsidize corporate price gouging. Rents would immediately shoot up.
Only as a replacement for any and all existing government welfare programs. Welfare and charity and investment are all best done decentralized and local as possible but what we have is so inefficient that this would be a huge improvement.
I've wondered the same thing. Seems like it would need to be paired with price controls or public control of essentials, but that's sort of a "seize the means of production" conversation that I don't think would be popular unless something like AI genuinely puts enough people out of work.
only if that income is required for basic necessities and everyone will need in their lives. for a generalization, there are three things I can think of the top of my head that everyone needs. It is to have housing, healthcare, and food. There are many more basic needs people should have fulfilled but I digress.
Currently in many first world and third world countries/classes are reliant on funding to fulfill most if not all basic needs. That is when it should be mandatory for UBI. How is something like that funded? like everything else. we all pay for it. Call it taxes, call it charity, call it whatever you want.
Yet, Why would someone need UBI for basic needs? well mostly because the general public is more divided and distrustful of centralized sources/authorities. Yet the only way UBI would be able to occur is with that kind of system.
So in all I don't think UBI would be supported by me. I like federated services and decentralization. I don't like the current state of all basic needs being behind paywalls. It is disappointing. I don't know what would help us the most, but moving into this direction is just not what I can see would be kind to people who are low on economic scales or helpful for most who are barely scraping by. Even if I live more or less comfortably right now, I see many basic needs in my life that I would still want to improve substantially or become available for me to act on.
Yes I'm 100% for it, And no, companies DGAF where your money comes from as long as you buy stuff. UBI is the only way capitalism can exist at all long-term, because to exist it requires customers. With the continuing drive to eliminate employees, eventually so many people will be unemployed that if nothing happens to supply them with money for shopping, they won't be able to shop. Before we even get to the stage of food riots and massive social unrest, businesses will start feeling the drop in sales and profits. They really have no motivation to oppose UBI - which of course won't stop the more short-sighted ones from opposing UBI, because people often do things that hurt themselves in the long run (see MAGA). But overall UBI is ultimately one way of keeping capitalism afloat as employees become less and less necessary.
I'm sceptical of it. where would all of that money come from? the "data industry", that is all about making the most believable lies and most effective ads? or land value tax that will make sure to outprice you from your own house if rich people flood it, or if improvements happen around the area?
the pension system, while I believe it is needed, I worry it cannot be sustained for too long anymore because currently it relies on infinite growth everywhere: year over year more people needs to work and pay taxes to finance the pension of the elderly.
or did I misunderstand something and this is not a problem?companies are gonna company.
and in this country, corporations are people.
capitalism loves to embrace extend extinguish so sure it's temporarily compatible with e v e r y t h i n g
I don't think UBI can exist at all. There's way too many problems that aren't even close to being addressed by arguments in favor of it. It doesn't work at all from a financial perspective. There's not a level of automation that exists that could handle the loss of workers. There's little evidence that new innovation or invention would happen as there's little benefit for the creator. The only way it works is in a post scarcity society, which isn't even close to existing.
One problem with this question is that UBI can be implemented in different ways and the way that it is implemented is very important.
I think that the way most people think about UBI is that you would get enough money to not have to work. I don't think that this is compatible with capitalism, because the main reason why people work is because they are pressured into it for economic reasons so removing that without providing people with some other reason to work will just cause the economy to collapse.
Even if people work for some other reason than money, you will still have the problem that UBI undermines itself. As less people work for money, the money you get from the UBI program will also mean less. Not only do you need a different way to encourage people to work, but you also need a new way to distribute the products of that work if you want to ensure that everyone has access to basics like food and housing.
For these reasons I don't think that a UBI that offers people the option of not working is compatible with capitalism. Capitalism is the system that we use to distribute work and resources and if we implement UBI we will have to invent new systems to do those things instead.
It is still possible to have a smaller UBI under capitalism if your goal is to for example prevent money from getting to concentrated among the rich and instead stimulate the economy, or something.
Let's see, lemmy, let's see if we can find one upvoted opinion against UBI.
Ah, no, we're an echo chamber. But then what's the point of AskLemmy, if you already know that everyone thinks the exact same way you do?
UBI is a great system, but I would want it heavily regulated. Because you just know and it's the truth, that a lot of people will sit on their ass all day and take advantage of it. This is a system that should be for those who're actually struggling.
And I say this because I've heard stories and seen it first hand, of people lying on documents and forms to get benefits that they don't deserve. You cannot introduce and incorporate UBI with the mindset that nothing can go wrong - because it could, if it's unchecked.
I take downvotes as an admission of guilt to my observations, thanks.