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1. Embed this notice
   Scott Santens (scottsantens@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 31-Jan-2024 23:04:08 JST Scott Santens

   Did you know that #basicincome experiments have shown time and time again that given the choice, people don't choose idleness? They choose education. They choose entrepreneurship. They pursue culture and care. By guaranteeing survival, universal basic income enables truly living.

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     Harold Jarche (harold@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:44:33 JST Harold Jarche

     in reply to

     @scottsantens

     With UBI, how will the capitalists find compliant and subservient workers?

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     climate voter/eco radical (tmstreet@urbanists.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:44:38 JST climate voter/eco radical

     in reply to

     @scottsantens I know that the protestant ethic requires that everyone work, regardless of how shitty the job is, but that should not be a requirement.

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     Adrian Morales (adrianmorales@ieji.de)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:44:47 JST Adrian Morales

     in reply to

     @scottsantens But why do we need these experiments in the first place? Is anyone doing experiments to find out why the super-rich need a second yacht?

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     Joe Vinegar (joe_vinegar@mastodon.bida.im)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:45:13 JST Joe Vinegar

     in reply to

     • Jordi (Flopsome Opossum)

     @Jorsh @scottsantens almost all* rich people come from rich families: their survival was never depending on their work**, and despite this they seem all* pretty busy.
     Even the famous "self-made" ones (a laughably small percentage* crowned by selection bias), they long stopped to (depend on) work to survive, and still they all* boast working** a lot.
     So please tell me: why the lack of "need to work to survive" is NOT a problem for upper bourgeoisie and rich people, while it should be a problem for all the rest?

     *citation needed
     ** for a suitable and questionable definition of "work"

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     Jordi (Flopsome Opossum) (jorsh@beige.party)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:45:14 JST Jordi (Flopsome Opossum)

     in reply to

     @scottsantens

     The idea that so many people would choose to be lazy is, in and of itself, lazy. People have aspirations and goals that are untenable in their financial situation. Remove the barrier, and suddenly, you have millions of people enriching their lives.

     We seem lazy because we're fucking depressed and tired from working all the time.

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     tetranomos (tetranomos@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:45:21 JST tetranomos

     in reply to

     @scottsantens your counternarrative is missing the point, just like why "open source" misses the point, as richard stallman argued.

     [why]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

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     Chirayu :verified: :twit: (mountdiscovery@twit.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:46:13 JST Chirayu :verified: :twit:

     in reply to

     @scottsantens and it's by far more "capitalist" than people think.

     If I have x amount, it's how I spend it. How I invest. This is how everyone becomes more prosperous monetarily.

     If I was given a product like in communism then everyone goes poor.

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     PigeonPancake (pigeonpancake@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:46:31 JST PigeonPancake

     in reply to

     @scottsantens I'm afraid thats the point. On top of losing out on desperately cheap labor, that's also potential competition to incumbent businesses who spend millions lobbying to make sure that doesn't happen for that very reason.

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     JimmyChezPants (jpaskaruk@growers.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 05:46:44 JST JimmyChezPants

     in reply to

     @scottsantens

     Basic Income in a capitalist context will be negated fairly quickly, seems to me.

     We need to embrace Socialism by name and without apology and make Capitalist the dirty word. Nothing less is going to stop them from creating misery for profit.

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     Selena (selena@ivoor.eu)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 08:42:50 JST Selena

     in reply to

     @scottsantens
     Most right-wingers (deliberately?) confuse UBI with welfare: in many countries you will lose money if you take on a lowpaid job if you are on welfare. Your gross income is roughly the same, but working costs money (childcare, transport, etc).
     Those people are stuck in the poverty-trap and make the very rational decision to avoid paid work.

     UBI massively cuts down on poverty-trap issues: working a few hours doesn't get you kicked out of welfare.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
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     Air Adam (airadam@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 12:09:57 JST Air Adam

     in reply to

     • Jordi (Flopsome Opossum)

     @Jorsh @scottsantens Black people have been called lazy since the second they couldn't force us to work for free.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
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     Jordi (Flopsome Opossum) (jorsh@beige.party)'s status on Thursday, 01-Feb-2024 12:09:59 JST Jordi (Flopsome Opossum)

     in reply to

     @scottsantens

     Lemme get this straight: the descendents of slaveholders are calling us lazy?

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     Timo (timo21@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 16:53:53 JST Timo

     in reply to

     @scottsantens yes #BasicIncome works. Until the conservatives get ahold of the program and squeeze the amounts to nothing. When conservatives support basic income schemes, be wary. How can basic income programs be shielded from conservatives and reactionaries?

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     Tammy Garrison (hauntedhideaway@babka.social)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 16:57:01 JST Tammy Garrison

     in reply to

     @scottsantens The people in charge don't want that. They want a desperate population willing to work for pittance wages out of fear of destitution and homelessness. If people had security and comfort, those employers would have to pay better to attract employees and have a better work environment and work life balance. Desperation is a feature, not a bug.

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     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 16:57:12 JST Graydon

     in reply to

     @scottsantens None of that matters.

     We live in a system under selection, meaning that we get a present populated by whatever in the past replicated itself.

     "Basic income" will function as a transfer of public funds to private wealth if it's possible to copy private wealth into the future. (E.g., "the yard-sale model" for a simple explanation of how this works.)

     If we actually want to improve anything, the problem isn't obtaining basic income; it's abolishing persistent wealth.

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 17:04:12 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo

     @timo21 @scottsantens

     The fundamental reasons why Basic Income will never be enacted by any major party in the USA are:

     - Devout bipartisan belief in the "Puritan work ethic" where "work for its own sake" is fetishized to an extreme;

     - The fear that "undeserving" people (read, Black and Brown folk) will disproportionately receive the main benefits, thus reducing the power of White Christian Supremacy to maintain social hierarchies;

     ....

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 17:09:13 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo

     @timo21 @scottsantens

     ....

     and

     - the need for capitalism maintain an "underclass" of marginalized and underprivileged folk to serve as both object lessons to keep workers locked into the current wage slavery system, and sources of mockery, comic insulting, and degradation objects for the privileged and "productive" who want to join the ruling class.

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 17:15:42 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo

     @timo21 @scottsantens

     Also....any proposal for a UBI that isn't robust enough to cover basic essential needs without undermining public services and public infrastructure, and is not part of a general program of redistribution of wealth and power away from capitalism and social inequity ideologies, is doomed to be co-opted, watered down to nothingness, and ultimately defeated by Puritan capitalism.

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     Passenger (passenger@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 17:30:06 JST Passenger

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • AnthonyJK-Admin

     @AnthonyJK @timo21 @scottsantens

     Remember that the American concept of "Protestant work ethic" is racist. It was made up to blame poor recent-immigrant Irish, Poles and Italians (who are mostly Catholic rather than Protestant) for their own poverty.

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 23:44:09 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     @AdrianRiskin @timo21 @scottsantens

     That's why I said that any Basic Income scheme has to be done within the concept of full redistribution of wealth and directly challenging and defusing private wealth and power.

     It should be noted, though, that private interests can do all of that pretty well in the current system, yet they still insist on miserly amounts of highly conditional, stigmatized "charity" schemes and insistence on "payback" and profiteering because "work ethic" & "laziness".

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     Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉 (adrianriskin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 23:44:10 JST Adrian Riskin 🇵🇸🍉

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • AnthonyJK-Admin

     @AnthonyJK @timo21 @scottsantens 🎯 also because they're an effective cover for government sponsored upwards wealth transfer. E.g. in the name of "solving homelessness" governments can spend a lot of money on ineffective private contractors to build, lease, and administer shelters. They can allow valuable zoning loopholes in the name of providing privately owned "affordable" housing. And so on.

     If they just announced they were handing over money and entitlements to their cronies there'd be scrutiny and resistance, but visible homelessness is horrifying to enough people that they don't look deeply into what's actually going on, which is mostly a grift rather than an attempt to help anyone or solve anything.

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     The Galactic Shitpost Outpost (cosmictrigger@kolektiva.social)'s status on Friday, 02-Feb-2024 23:53:50 JST The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • AnthonyJK-Admin

     @AnthonyJK @timo21 @scottsantens

     The fundamental reasons why Basic Income JUST MIGHT be enacted by any major party in the USA:

     It would result in huge profits for greedy, price-gouging landlords since they would up the rents to the level of the UBI, leaving everyone just as broke as they were before

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Saturday, 03-Feb-2024 00:02:17 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     @CosmicTrigger @timo21 @scottsantens

     Sure, that's a legit concern....which is why any direct subsidy or Progressive Basic Income scheme MUST come with explicit rent controls and direct public, socialized control of utilities and other services to counter the greed instincts of private interests.

     Still, it should be noted that landlords and renters eat pretty damn well in the current system, where they can impose enough obstacles, hoops, bells, and mazes in order to claw back the costs of aid.

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Saturday, 03-Feb-2024 00:10:32 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     @CosmicTrigger @timo21 @scottsantens

     It should also be noted that the same arguments that you make about privatized UBI becoming a runaway inflationary grift for corporations are the same arguments that conservatives and capitalists have made against other forms of progressive redistribution, including the minimum wage, environmental protection, and "welfare".

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     AnthonyJK-Admin (anthonyjk@mastodon.redgarterclub.com)'s status on Saturday, 03-Feb-2024 00:18:02 JST AnthonyJK-Admin

     in reply to

     • Timo
     • The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     @CosmicTrigger @timo21 @scottsantens

     I do understand that many on the Left and most MMT'ers would prefer a Federal Job Guarantee system where the government would offer up public sector jobs at livable wage levels and robust benefits.

     My main issue is that an FJG on its own plays a bit too much into the conservative "Puritan work ethic", ignoring the issues of disabled and other marginalized people who can't do manual labor. It can also be abused into a political machine of corruption.

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     Timo (timo21@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Saturday, 03-Feb-2024 17:44:48 JST Timo

     in reply to

     • AnthonyJK-Admin

     @AnthonyJK @scottsantens The current mashup of
     prosperity gospel/Ayn Randism in the MAGA churches works fairly well at convincing some workers that they too can be rich some day. So who needs class action, unions, etc. They are gonna be rich.