Can UBI Eliminate Poverty? - Hahaha! Fuck no!

[Slap47]

I like UBI.

It's a streamlined welfare system that doesn't discriminate.

I also like the ideal of people only working if they want consumer goods. The Romans employed a similar system - everybody got free food - and it worked wonders for creating a commercial economy. This obviously has issues if you believe in social degeneration but punishing people by revoking their UBI may actually reduce crime. Poorer people with nothing to lose now have something to lose -a comfy NEET life.

We'd have a reason to get rid reason of wasteful bureaucratic jobs and have less opposition to more efficient mechanization.

Bit anxious of it though - it reeks of social engineering and those experiments always seem to turn out badly.

 

[Y2K Baby]

I like UBI.

Lol, the Canadian.

 

[Sweetpeaa]

You know when UBI should have been implemented? 2008. The fact that it wasn't shows that it never will be even despite the Covid situation. The thing is I don't think people and their finances were ever really the same after 2008, the change felt in society was irrevocable and certain jobs with particular wages and benefits associated with them never seemed to return. The post Covid economy will be even worse.

The fact now that we have so many jobs without pensions and people have to pay for their own retirement shows where we are headed as a society. Buh bye middle class, it was nice to know you.

 

[Hoff Man]

6 months after ubi everyones rent will increase by at least 50%

 

[Unassuming Local Guy]

UBI is such a stupid, awful idea that it would take a lifetime pointing out every flaw and the disastrous consequences thereof. So I'll just start and end with the biggest and simplest one by far:

90% of poor people are not poor because they're not getting enough free shit. They're poor because they're fuckups and will never not be fuckups no matter how much money you give them. See: almost every professional athlete, lottery winner, and young solo musician in the entire world.

 

[Lemmingwise]

The Romans employed a similar system - everybody got free food - and it worked wonders for creating a commercial economy.

The Romans used this in their nadir days, in an attempt to stave off ruin. Bread and games were the way to stave off revolution and pessimisticly gain political power only worked for a short time.

Also this wasn't a system that was offered to everybody under their rule; such a system is economically impossible. It was offered to one city, Rome, and used large amounts of import from agricultural behemoths like Egypt.

 

[Slap47]

The Romans used this in their nadir days, in an attempt to stave off ruin. Bread and games were the way to stave off revolution and pessimisticly gain political power only worked for a short time.

Also this wasn't a system that was offered to everybody under their rule; such a system is economically impossible. It was offered to one city, Rome, and used large amounts of import from agricultural behemoths like Egypt.

The system lasted them more than 800 years. It didn't fix wealth inequality but it created a consumer base that made some capitalism possible.

 

[Lemmingwise]

It didn't fix wealth inequality but it created a consumer base that made some capitalism possible.

It only took an empire larger than Europe to feed a single city.

We should apply this principle to all cities, what could go wrong?

 

[Dumpsterfire Enthusiast]

i dont think that high of UBI would be a good idea but i dont think itd be that bad if it were really minimal to the point where if you lived off of only UBI and didnt have a job you would be living out of a tent or if its really generous the cheapest housing possible eating ramen every day

 

[societyguy01]

As nice as something like UBI would sound in theory, the driving force behind its implementation is not a sort of "good will" towards the general masses on behalf of the ruling elite. On the contrary, what UBI would essentially serve as is a skinner box like reinforcement tool in the service of social engineering. UBI is a misnomer because UBI will never be universally distributed by any fair standard. What's to stop the government from tying in mandatory vaccinations or human bio chipping as a necessary condition for receiving UBI? What's to stop the ruling elite from cutting off UBI to anyone considered a "white nationalist" or "Nazi." terms which can be thrown around without care so much that even Asians and Latinos end up getting called these terms just for being against the cathedral. Those who are loyal to the establishment will get the UBI, while those who go against it will be cut off completely, have their bank account shut down, get fired, doxxed, and worse. In a harmonious, relatively homogenous society it would be a no brainer. But America is anything but that.

 

[Overly Serious]

The Romans employed a similar system - everybody got free food - and it worked wonders for creating a commercial economy.

Only to actual citizens and made possible by importing collossal quantities of grain from the subject states. And it was something done only sporadically during the times the Roman Empire was on the rise as a protection against starvation by its poorest citizens. Later it became a permanent thing and it's one half of the phrase "bread and circuses". Also, I it was subsidized prices not free bread for most of its use. It did become free bread in the late stages until it got badly out of control and Julius Casear reigned it in, I'm not saying saving people from starvation is a bad thing, mind you. I'm saying that this might not be a good analogy to UBI and more definitely that it wasn't the basis of creating Rome's "commercial economy" which was established very solidly before free bread was a thing. Another significant point to take from your analogy is that it wasn't compatible with uncontrolled immigration / citizenship. Rome didn't say to everyone "come here and have free food". It said "citizens only below a certain means have free food". I'm of the opinion UBI might work but necessarily requires immigration / citizenship control.

For a modern example of a kind of UBI under a different name look at Saudi Arabia. You have a citizen class that receive endless boons from their royalty fuelled by oil wealth. And for similar reasons - keep the people fed and happy. Whilst at the same time you have a near slave underclass of imported workers who do not get such handouts and work crazy hard to make ends meet for the actual citizens. If you introduced UBI into say the USA, it would intentionally or not create an recipient class who had no desire to do unskilled menial jobs and an imported non-recipient class who didn't get UBI to do that menial work.

6 months after ubi everyones rent will increase by at least 50%

Yes. I think the largest effect of UBI would be to decimate the Middle Class, essentially. I should expand on that when I have more time.

 

[Joan Nyan]

Only if we can automate away the majority of work. Post-scarcity economics are a totally different beast than what we have now. When for instance the crops harvest themselves and the trucks drive the food to your door automatically, there's no logical reason you shouldn't get it free, the robots don't need the money. Whether you make it free by giving everyone the money for it or by just giving away free food you get to the same place in the end.

 

[Drunk and Pour]

No. You can't get rid of poverty. Giving everybody a thousand dollars a month would just set that as the new poverty line. You might as well be everybody a penny a month. Who gets the UBI? "Everybody"? Someone that makes a million dollars a year or more? Why would they need it? If someone makes $800 a month, does the extra $1000 get added on to it? Regardless, why would you work if you get paid more to do nothing? Plus, you know, why are we going to force a federal $15 minimum wage while letting the country be flooded with illegals that are allowed to do if for less than half the price? I thought $15 minimum was the standard of living, why are we creating a non-white, non-American class that live below the standard of living?

It's been almost a year and a half since I wrote this. The Covid situation and shut downs just help reinforce my previous opinion. I work an "essential" retail job and I'm kind of salty that people that were laid off were getting more money for free than I was working a bullshit job. We are still understaffed and having difficulty hiring more people. Every time someone complains that there are only three people working in the entire store, I just want to tell them this is what life with UBI would look like.

Edit: formatting.