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I do wonder what the alternative is... Would that be growing/hunting your own food and making your own clothes and building your own shelter? I don't know about anyone else, but I would not live long in that scenario.
Surely there isn't an economic system in which people don't work for a top 1%, but for everyone, you could say a communal, or a social, economic system...
I mean, that experiment has been run and it is wildly difficult to manage (humans are quite wily!).
People said the same thing about not having kings
Well, we will need some different, better minds on it to see success. I'd embrace it if I thought someone had any vague idea of how to execute it.
The context is that there is enough wealth in most western countries that not everyone must work to survive. Working should be for having access to more things that just surviving, and not everyone should be required to work all the time just to survive.
Basic needs are basic, like food, shelter, and healthcare. If everyone had access to those basic things they would be free even if they need to work to attain more.
Someone still has to work for those things to be produced.
The point is that technology means a fraction of the population can feed and house the rest, and that fraction doesn't need to live like royalty, and the rest don't need to live in servitude for that exchange to happen.
Don't you want others to enjoy your success with you? Apply that principle to all of humanity the world over, and you have what could be, if we just stopped waring over hoards.
Nowhere in your comment did you refute the fact that it's currently not possible to have a society where no one has to work. There still has to be human labor.
I said nothing about the distribution of wealth or supporting our current system.
True, but how many people actually work to make that happen?
Most people I know work for a company that works for a company to increase the profit of another company.
Also, at what point do you tip into you-dont-get-choose-your-job land? Is it still considered freedom if you are required to have a job to serve basic needs of the larger community? For example, we need more doctors even without universal healthcare in the US. If we covered the basic needs of everyone, wouldn't we have to require some people to become doctors, who are not on that trajectory today?
If doctors would be paid what managers are paid today, I'm sure there will be enough incentive. Essential jobs need to pay what they're worth, which is more than any other jobs
A lot of those businesses still need to exist for society to function. They could be restructured into non-profits, but they'll still exist.
There will always be a need for jobs that people aren't going to just do for the hell of it. No one enjoys breaking their back harvesting crops or digging ditches.
I'm not saying the current system is any good, but the idea of no one having to work if they don't want to is not obtainable without some serious advances in robotics.
I specifically mean those companies that do not directly add to the jobs that "need" to be done.
My feeling is that more people work bullshit jobs because they pay better than e.g. harvesting crops or driving a bus.
They work bullshit jobs because harvesting crops and driving a bus are shitty jobs that basically no one wants to do.
I used to work those shitty jobs, and pay wasn't the issue
If harvesting crops would pay six figures, I'm sure there'd be enough willing people
Where's that money going to come from?
The point of UBI isn't to allow anyone to not work if they don't want to. It's so that everyone can live securely while still contributing to keeping society running, and allow those who can't work to live without worry about survival.
You can't have UBI without workers. It's still working to survive, just with a massive safety net.
From net worth of all millionaires and billionaires, where it's not currently being used for anything worthwhile.
UBI is only the first step towards actual redistribution of wealth
That networth isn't cash on hand. It's comprised of assets that can't be instantly converted into cash.
And like the other person said, it's not nearly enough for UBI.
Even if you could wave a magic wand and magically convert all that net worth straight across into that amount of cold hard cash, it wouldn't pay for a measly $10k UBI for all working-age Americans for more than two years.
Then what's the plan? That 10k costs over $2 trillion.
Then, hopefully, during those 2 years of not having to be afraid for their lives if they lose a job, working-age Americans would get together and establish actual socialism
$10k would definitely not make me stop caring about whether I lose my job, lol.
While I don’t disagree. there don’t have to be dragons hoarding all the wealth making us fight among ourselves to survive
An asset appreciating in value does not deprive anyone else of money in their wallet.
If you bought a rookie baseball card for $5, the player had a great year and now the card's worth $100, your net worth increased by $95. But who is down $95 as a result of your card becoming more valuable?
Nobody. Wealth is not zero sum. And the vast majority of increases in wealth among the wealthiest is newly-created wealth. You literally can't become a billionaire in a human lifetime simply by short-changing your workers. A linear increase like that just will not get you there.
Also, wealth in the form of purchased investments into businesses that run within the economy, is literally the opposite of hoarding. If you buy things with your money, you're not hoarding your money.
but an asset appreciating in value off the back of another persons labor deprives the laborer of their fair share
There is a vast gap between "most people need to work for everyone in society to live comfortably" and "every individual needs their own personal income to survive".
The amount of brainwashing and propaganda is incredible. People actually just can't imagine a world where they're not toiling for their bosses.
It's insane. And any attempt to argue against it is shut down immediately. This post (https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/?v=3) is one of the most digestible things I've seen for the scale at which those people hoard wealth. It's so easy to follow and understand how the world could be better if those people didn't exist. But anyone I try talking to says "oh I'm not going to read all that" or "scrolling through that will take too long" ...which is exactly the fucking point. And this is from 4 years ago! Their wealth has only increased while our buying power has gone down.
It's called democratic socialism.
The alternative is all the wealth and resources hoarded by top 1% are shared among people so that everyone has access to basic stuff like food, shelter and healthcare regardless of whether they're able to work.
Which isn't to say this would be easy to achieve, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Taxing people appropriately is obviously the right way to go. But it actually doesn't change the dynamic identified in the meme substantially. Rich people still hoard resources (albeit less after taxes). And basic needs are only met if enough people keep working to pay taxes or enrich their employers who pay taxes.
If people are taxed appropriately, there will be no hoarding
Maybe... Is saving considered hoarding? Is leaving a small inheritance to your kids considered hoarding?
Even without the semantic confusion or disagreement, it doesn't change the fundamental dynamic identified in the post.
It's considered hoarding if the money you're saving was stolen from other people (and I'm including wage theft in there). If you've actually earned the money you're leaving to your kids by hard work, I don't see the problem there. Because there's no way anyone can become a billionaire without stealing.