I was once talking with one of my classmates and he said that in the future, there will be universal basic income implemented by entire world. I was not convinced at that time and thought he is just being stupid but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment, I am thinking about this possibility. What do you say?
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No. Total war is our future. Then maybe, but we won’t be alive by then
If we replaced all of our current welfare systems with a simple UBI, it would save us money. In terms of running the system, and simplifying taxes. Don’t need to take 5 different taxes out of your paycheck, just one. Earn over a certain amount? You don’t get it. The majority of people won’t, because they’ll be earning enough to pay in but not collect. This would have to be done alongside universal healthcare, as tying healthcare to employment wouldn’t work much anymore, which would also save us a massive amount of money.
The result of which, is an absolute explosion of creative genius and new businesses. People no longer hindered by the threat of starving in the street, or losing their healthcare, would finally be able to start that business they always wanted to. They’d be able to create their long-overdue masterpiece. Literature, art, new inventions. There’s a guy out there right now that, if given the space and a bit of assistance, could create the first prototype of a warp drive. There’s someone else who has a pretty good idea about how to cure dementia, and halt the aging process.
Just imagine the possibilities of actually investing in our people, and in our society, instead of handing all of our money to billionaires, and letting those evil mentally handicapped fuckwits steer the course of humanity straight into a climate change-driven mass-extinction event.
Just Imagine.
UBI is the future if we are allowed peace.
WW3 in an apocalyptic scale is much more likely. Don’t need to feed the obsolete peasants if they’re all dead.
UBI to me is a leftist pipe dream of how a post-scarcity society could work. When you actually look at the financials and how greedy humanity is, it all falls apart and will either bankrupt entire nations or pay an absolute pittance.
The UK’s voluntary living wage is £13.45 an hour, which translates to £26,227.50 for someone working full time 37.5 hours a week. If we replaced our entire welfare system (state pensions, Universal Credit, child benefit, Personal Independence Payments, Disability Living Allowance, etc) and paid our approx 58.1 million population of working age people and retirees the living wage, it would cost us over £1.5 trillion, or roughly half our annual GDP. Our current welfare expenditure by comparison is at an estimated £333.7 billion.
I am using the Living Wage as a comparison since it’s an agreed metric calculated by a non-profit organisation for how much a worker would need to earn to live on their wage in the UK. To pay a living wage to every adult in the country we would need to spend nearly three times as much as what the USA spends on its military.
The question then becomes “How the fuck will we pay for it?” We can’t even get the rich to pay their fair share of tax as things stand. They are going to flat-out refuse to foot the bill once AI leads to mass unemployment.
What I think is a more likely scenario is societal collapse. People starve, leading to widespread civil unrest and then a brutal and violent crackdown, made easier than ever by armed drones and humanoid robots that have no sense of morals. This is exactly the kind of doomsday scenario that a lot of billionaires are prepping for.
The only way I can see humanity not ripping itself apart is if automation somehow makes the cost of living so cheap that UBI could viably exist.
You’re forgetting to factor in all the people that won’t receive it because they already earn enough. A majority of people won’t get anything at all. Replacing all of our current welfare systems with a simple UBI would save us money. It’s just that the billionaires are under the impression that it would stop people from working harder for a better life, which is also something they think about our current welfare system, and has never been true.
Would be nice but the wealthy won’t allow it. You can trace back to when the wealth/power inequality ramped up and those with the power will never let it go, and worse with their propaganda on all the socials most scroll mindlessly. The same methods to keep people going along with the flow was used way back then and still today. Keep people in low-level thinking, don’t question, just obey supernatural explanations, Perry’s scheme 1-3 of 9, they use all the neurological tricks like fear, reward, belonging, etc so people comply and conform, just what the owners and those who also benefit from the high-control systems want.
I think we already have a rudimentary form of UBI in the debt system. You’re born with a certain level of creditworthiness, which you can “spend” on getting credit.
Yes, but not in the way we envision it.
Wealth inequality will increase. Drastically. There will be a small group of people owning basically everything. But they still need cheap labor and subjects, plus someone needs to consume their products. Because jobs will be limited UBI will be implemented: as a baseline to keep us alive, not as a tool for general prosperity.
Watch “Elysium” how this bleak world may look. It’s not a great movie, but has that “everyone but a few people is super fucked”-theme locked down.
Yes, but only because your question implies there is a future for humanity, and I believe UBI is realistically one of the few ways humanity even gets a future
It should but it won’t.
Not without some “encouragement”
The rich have done everything they can to increase wealth inequality and brainwash the public into acceptance. That will not be reversed. If they allow UBI it will be below poverty levels and highly conditional.
The wealthy want slaves. Its a mental illness with them. Black people. Underage sex trafficking. Working poor. Robots. Last thing they want is a utopia where everyone is healthy, happy and financially independent.
One of the wealthiest countries in the world doesn’t even have proper healthcare system in 2026. No way are those dumb fucks getting a UBI. Its a lie.
No because corps and oligarchs will campaign against it, inexplicably win, and destroy one of the country’s greatest achievements with cheers and applause
Its cynical, but its happened to many social programs thay way.
UBI is 100% populist idea. It replaces targeted welfare directed at people who need it with universal one - which is a massive waste of money, and extremly unfair to the working class as it has to be financed with massive taxation.
Funny how Marxists love talking about working class being exploited just to nonchalantly drop UBI around.
IMO Universal Basic Income the second worst idea after so called “Modern Monetary Theory”
I know this is a wild concept, so bear with me:
We could try taxing the owning class, too.
Extremely unfair to who? We’re the last generations to be employed and have jobs
We’re the last generations to be employed and have jobs
We were also supposed to run out of oil or starve to death due to overpopulation, depending on what period you check. The newest tren is “we’re running out of lithium for batteries”
Point is predictions like this almost never come true. There’s too many variables in the long run.
What Marxists are talking about UBI as proposed by yang and others?
If by UBI you mean everyone has access to housing, food, water, electricity, internet, education, and healthcare, you’re talking about two different things.
UBI proposed assumes corporations replace workers with automations and aims to provide a crutch for those capitalism eats alive, except it doesn’t guarantee any of the things I listed that people need. It just gives them money to spend on corporations.
If by UBI you mean everyone has access to housing, food, water, electricity, internet,
I’m talking in literal meaning as in “universal basic income” where some taxes collected from working class are redistributed to everyone.
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Yes.
It should be. Also the NIT (Negative Income Tax) so the taxing scheme becomes progressive, rather than regressive. Though I know I’m asking too much because capitalism…
Nope it’s not.
Look, most of the taxes are paid by the people, do you think the billionaires are gonna spare a dime? Where UBI is needed, there’s most likely an entire population of working class that’s not generating any tax revenue, and is a net negative for the government. And tax money isn’t just meant to be distributed to the people, it’s for also maintaining infrastructure and building new ones. You realise how much of burden would UBI be on the government? Do you think they can still maintain roads and fund libraries/universities if most of their treasury is being spent on paying people an income?
I don’t think UBI is practical at all. Ground reality is, even governments have finite resources. We genuinely need better plans than just relying on UBI as solution.
UBI will only come as a response to a new economic depression. The idea that our society will proactively fix itself has been proven wrong time after time.
Humans only learn the hard way.