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From your reply, I think I understand fully and that it is you who are confused.
You're still talking about UBI as if it's a tax on the rich. It's not. You talk about wealth redistribution as if UBI were socialism. It's not.
I've asked you time and time again to tell me what features YOUR vision of UBI has, after listing the iconic features that I hate about UBI. Why haven't you addressed any of the features you want or the features I dread?
I'm going to ask you a hard question. Do you actually know anything about UBI? Or is it a buzz-word for you of the simple vague idea of things being better?
You accused me elsewhere of coming across as nebulous. I'm going to use that same assertion against you. I know what the UBI I've objected to is about, but you haven't addressed my objections as if they aren't relevant to your UBI. But you've also not told me anything more about UBI than "It's a transfer of wealth from those who have hoarded to those who are desperate".
But if I called UBI strict socialism, the seizure of the means of production such that everyone owns everything and private property becomes a fiction, I don't think you'd stand with that (since you're standing against universal EBT over a $1000/mo check). So UBI is not the definition you're trying to use, even to you.
Why haven’t you addressed any of the features you want
Tax the rich, and distribute cash transfers, to enforce a guaranteed income floor for each adult, and a further amount for each dependent child.
or the features I dread?
Your characterization is just a straw man, like a car with no wheels, or one you think should fly.
If you remove the features you dread, and include the ones you like, then all will be well.
If your objective is to create an idea you feel convinced will have catastrophic consequences, then you doubtless will succeed, as such a task would be trivial for anyone.
Tax the rich, and distribute cash transfers, to enforce a guaranteed income floor for each adult, and a further amount for each dependent child.
Ok. Is it your opinion that an income floor is more important than a QOL floor? If people are still homeless or starving, and others wealthy, is that acceptable to you so long as there's an income floor?
Your characterization is just a straw man, like a car with no wheels, or one you think should fly.
What's with the aggression? What exactly is a strawman about my characterization?
These are my fears. If you think they're wrong, ADDRESS them by name with reasoning instead of insulting me vaguely.
- EVERY UBI plan seems to punish the middle-class or poor in some way. Yang's is the only truly mature UBI plan I've ever been presented, and it punished the poor pretty badly because it required opting out of welfare to receive. Tax-balanced UBI plans constantly start to turn into a net negative right around the Lower Middle Class line, meaning >60% of the US suffers for the UBI, with the middle-class and upper-middle-class suffering the most.
- UBI has a ceiling. A $1000/mo UBI will double the entire federal outlay, but $1000/mo is not life-changing for most poor and middle-class Americans. It's ONE FOURTH the living wage. So it does nothing on its own, while costing so much money that social programs come off the table. Unemployed people still need to work or starve to death. People. Still. Starve.
Those are true concerns. So true that you don't seem to be willing to look them in the eye. You haven't discussed specifics at all. This is the 3rd or 4th reply since I accused you of not actually knowing what UBI even is because you haven't shown any such knowledge.
If you remove the features you dread, and include the ones you like, then all will be well.
Absolutely. If the UBI comes in the form of food+clothing, housing, and healthcare instead of cash and doesn't cost the US $4T, then all will be well. But that's not a UBI anymore.
If your objective is to create an idea you feel convinced will have catastrophic consequences, then you doubtless will succeed
Most of my critiques come from the only UBI plan ever seriously considered for the United States. You're making it look like my concerns are contrived, but they are the only concrete example the world has ever provided. Have you actually read Yang's UBI plan? As asked above, do you even know enough about what a UBI is? I'm willing to concede the possibility that there's a workable UBI that's just alien to those I've seen, but you seem unwilling to show me what. UBI feels like the wrong answer to the problem of poverty, the same way "clean coal" is the wrong answer to the problem of global warming.
In fact, your defenses have been so vague, I could probably put the words "clean coal" wherever you wrote UBI, and the argument would make more sense.
So please, stop treating me like I'm a bad guy, and show me what you see about UBI. Is it ignorance, or do you know something about UBI that I don't? We both clearly want everyone to have access to food and shelter. I'm just convinced that the way you're pitching will starve people. And I have no idea what your problem is with the way I'm pitching.
Advocate for what you want, not just against everything associated with the same label as what you fear.
Also, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Advocate for what you want
I do. EBT, rent-coverage, healthcare for all.
Not just against everything associated with the same label as what you fear.
UBI is a fairly concrete concept, cutting a check to every single person or household. While its implementation has some variants (is it a tax refund or a stimulus? Is it means-tested or means-adjusted?) that's the heart of what you need to do to be a UBI. I try to envision the BEST possible, or at least best realistic UBI, and that's what I try to consider. What comes out to me from that are all the concerns I have. Yang's plan isn't trying to kill welfare just for reasons of his capitalist ideology, it's also because he knows his plan is prohibitively expensive. That's what everything boils down to. I used to be all-in with UBI, but I genuinely have never been able to dial in on a possible UBI plan that's any better than the society we have now.
Also, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
This saying doesn't really apply when so-called Good might be worse than what we have, or harder to implement/maintain than perfect. "Perfect" is downright affordable except for the conservative mindset against "giving people things for free". The best UBI plan I can imagine is less likely to get votes, more expensive, and less effective than just taking means-testing out of welfare. BOTH are impossible in this climate, but why shoot for "Bad" when it's 10 miles off the coast of "Perfect"?
But you say you see something in UBI. I want to see it, too. That's why I'm asking about it.
UBI is a fairly concrete concept, cutting a check to every single person or household.
It is concrete, as I explained, but you were writing mountains of text trying to make it obscure.
This saying doesn't really apply when so-called Good might be worse than what we have,
Keep fighting for advances, for greater power and deeper unity for the working class.
Emphasize the opportunities for today above the vision for tomorrow or the fears for next year.
It is concrete, as I explained, but you were writing mountains of text trying to make it obscure.
Not really.
Keep fighting for advances, for greater power and deeper unity for the working class.
And not for UBI. I think we're on the same page, then.
Emphasize the opportunities for today above the vision for tomorrow or the fears for next year.
Well this discussion was about something that won't happen today or tomorrow, so focusing on today seemed silly.
UBI would represent a great advancement for the working class.
It should be plain.
Also plain is that it will only be achieved through struggle.
Fighting makes a stronger contribution than analyzing details that are currently only hypothetical.
UBI would represent a great advancement for the working class. It should be plain.
My whole point for the last 20 comments has been specific, detailed reasons why I think it's not an advancement for the working class. Is there any reason you won't address them? If it were plain, there should be answers to my criticisms.
Fighting makes a stronger contribution than analyzing details that are currently only hypothetical.
So how often do you fight for things you think are harmful? Why should the Left be flocking to a plan like UBI, one that is often seen as a "centrist compromise" between welfare and laissez faire capitalism? In the US at least, we're already further to the Left than UBI in many ways, and the working class have better than UBI (even if there's miles to go to proper socialized welfare).
Your objections were against details that are narrow, undetermined, or hypothetical.
I declined to address your objections on their merits, because I find in them no merit.
The solution to a car not having any wheels is applying wheels, not lamenting that all cars are dysfunctional because none may ever have wheels.
The constructive response to any problem is addressing it at the time it occurs, not obsessing over it while also refusing to begin any action.
Workers who have little income gaining more income, or workers who have precarious income gaining secure income, is obviously not harmful, yet you seem determined to fixate on some particular scenario that makes you feel threatened.
Workers need income to survive. UBI helps ensure security for everyone.
Your objections were against details that are narrow, undetermined, or hypothetical. I declined to address your objections on their merits, because I find in them no merit.
So the majority are too stupid and unworthy to get explanations, and evidence/studies don't matter? I mean, these are not contrived or uneducated objections.
The solution to a car not having any wheels is applying wheels, not lamenting that all cars are dysfunctional because none may ever have wheels.
A car with only 1 wheel isn't going anywhere, and there's no UBI out there offering to give even 2 wheels. But I specifically named plans that come "all-4-wheels-included' and your response was to insult me as "narrow, undetermined, or hypothetical" with "no merit".
The constructive response to any problem is addressing it when it occurs, not obsessing over it while also refusing to begin any constructive action.
So you're saying we need to run blindly to the Right when the Left already has proven answers? Why? Capitalism is the problem. Cutting everyone a check in capitalism is still capitalism.
Workers who have little income having more income, or workers who have precarious income having secure income
So pay them a living wage not to work (no-questions-asked unemployment) and let their stability leverage better wages. That'll actually work and cost less than what you're suggesting.
is obviously not harmful
Your use of "obviously" is bad-faith. My whole argument is that blindly cutting a not-nearly-enough check for everyone is "obviously" quite harmful, just like Bush's tax cuts were.
yet you seem determined to fixate on some particular scenario that makes you feel threatened.
I don't feel threatened. As upper-middle-class I personally do better under UBI than I would under any full-socialization of resources. I don't care because I have no problem with getting passed over for aid if it's going to those who really need it. I don't want a $1000 "Make Welfare Conservative Again" check.
Workers need income to survived. UBI helps ensure security for everyone.
Or we can just put wheels on that car and ensure that everyone can survive with or without income. Instead of feeding the alt-right machine.
I'd like to reiterate (not that you read my replies) that my whole point is that you're trying to fix a solved problem with an untested capitalist answer that, at best, is 1/2 as good as the solutions we already know will work and for 5x the price.
And it looks like you have no desire to let all of those on the Left who think UBI is the wrong tool know why we should reconsider. That's all I've been trying to do, give you that opportunity.
EDIT: Is there anyone ELSE reading this who would be willing to give a good reason why a SocDem or socialist should support UBI instead of just be confrontational? I used to love the idea of it, but I'm really sold on it being the wrong tool of late, and I have to be honest that Yang was a big part of my reasoning for feeling this way.