Do you think UBI will be the future of the world?

When UBI starts being seriously considered on a large scale, you’ll likely see a massive influence campaign against it. Something along the lines of “If you give people free money, they’ll never get a job.” It will likely have racial undertones that range from subtle and implicit to wildly explicit, depending on the forum.

If low information working class people, those who would benefit the most from such a program, fall for that campaign, as they often do, you’ll see a backlash against it that could prevent it from becoming law.

I don't honestly think it will happen in a way that is genuinely good for people. It will happen in a way where the rich and powerful are in control and can use it as a method for maintaining control.

UBI is a bandaid to keep capitalism propped up by neo-liberals. It's contingent on the idea that society is dependent on people spending money, rather than getting essential services and enough free time to maintain mental stability.

I think that it will start as an universal basic income but that it will evolve into universal basic products and services. Basic stuff you don't have to pay for, like for example food and public transport and in time expand to shelter, all levels of education, etc. To the point of covering all the basic needs.

The billionaires would have to fund it, and I don’t believe for a second they wouldn’t leave us all to starve.

We need to tax the wealthy fucks first. The hyperclass has too much wealth that is just sitting around doing nothing but influencing the world negatively. With the existing wealth inequality, UBI won't even be financed.

#TaxWealth #TaxWealthNotWork

I don't think so.

No UBI proponent has given me a convincing argument that inflation greedy bastards won't eventually increase prices to the extent that the extra money would be effectively wiped out. Which would be especially bad because people often propose UBI as a replacement for welfare - so those on a benefit get what little spending power they have eliminated, and only those with jobs can absorb the increased costs.

Also, governments don't tend to go around handing out money (well, to those who actually need it) willy-nilly. Most social welfare/workers' rights gains in the 20th century were because western governments were afraid that the October Revolution might give their citizens ideas. As of now, there's no longer threat of an alternative to Capitalism.

I think it's absolutely necessary as stop-gap on the way to a truly post-scarcity society where money is irrelevant, but highly unlikely because greedy cunts run everything.

No. Once the people have the time and leisure to think and mingle they might find out who the real source of the problem is. So it's better to keep your slaves busy and struggling to keep the roof over their head and their belly not empty.

It should but it won’t.

When the whole world is converted into a factory to produce luxuries for the wealthy, and community is a far-off relic of the past, the laborers will be provided with basic subsistence, just enough to keep them alive and able to work. Or they'll be replaced with automation. Whichever is cheaper.

It will never happen.

Not because it is a bad idea; it is an AWESOME idea. Work used to be something you do for the collectivity; you do something for the group, in exchange of something from the group. Today, a work is a mean to earn money, regardless of the collectivity. We do meaningless jobs, which often gives nothing to the collectivity, just because we have a rent to pay, we want vacations and a new car. A universal basic income would completely break this; I would work to bring something to the group, not to reach a stupid objective for the company.

However, there is a fringe of people which will not gain anything from this, even lose leverage and power over the masses: the 1%, the millionaires and billionaires. They will do whatever they can to kill it, saying only freeloaders and foreigners will benefits from it. And the masses will vote against it, and it will be a big victory for capitalism. Until global warming accelerate, we will have nothing to eat anymore and earth will be inhospitable for humans. The end.

We're 30% there already, between long term unemployed and people on social security. I support more. Human rights include food, shelter, healthcare, but not everyone has figured that out yet.

UBI has to have a lot of folks wanting it and theres contingents that would rather starve then see those people get a thin dime, with "those people" having various meanings. Then there's the temporarily embarassed millionaires, and of course the Fox news crew who think socio-commu-trans folk are going to dye their kids hair blue and make them worship Satan.

To be honest I'm not fan of UBI. I'm more fond of redistribution of work.

If there's less things to do due to automatization let's just all work less hours with full income.

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 lol.

have you ever met a rich person? like a real rich person? they're arrogant and snobby and think the rest of us have no right to exist. there's a reason there's this massive push to implement AI. part of it is to save money but the other part of it is that they legit think that we're all lesser and AI replacing call centers and fast food jobs will hasten our departure.

we'll all end up being thrown in a volcano before they implement UBI.

i'd say asia has more of a chance in the long run just because social responsibility is part of culture and that can often act as an antidote to the worst parts of capitalism. south korea can be gross but at least they throw their corrupt leaders in jail...

no chance of this happening in the states.

Well, if things progress as they do, the end state is either feudalism/slavery at one extreme, UBI or something like communism at the other. It will also vary by state, but I would expect oligarchs to want more (even if there is no other endgame) and war (state, corporate, both, or the corps and states cease to be distinct) to follow. Does that ever end in a united earth? I doubt it.

We have to kill or tax all billionaires out of existence first. Their choice. And I don't mean that with any sentiment of hyperbole.

Taxing (or burying at sea, or grilling on a spit, or force feeding them like foie gras to consume their livers) billionaires out of existence isn't an issue of generating enough tax revenue. You can consider it a part of why such a thing is important, but it should not be considered the primary point.

The primary point is to reduce the distance between the wealthiest among us and the least wealthy among us. For all it matters, the money re-possessed could be burned. Its utilization is secondary to reducing the disparity.

If being a billionaire was an illegal act punishable by immediate execution, the need for UBI would be dramatically reduced. It would also be dramatically easier to implement.

No. Wealthy people don't feel like they're winning unless poor people are losing.

I really like UBI and think it would work wonderfully if it was somehow actually implemented without major bullshit. But I'm not sure it's even possible to implement, because it would make it next to impossible to exploit and control people, which would be really bad for corporate profits. I'm skeptical that capitalist democracy is strong enough to overcome that, I think maybe the way it works is more of a negotiation of power between the factions that actually hold leverage over things, and that it is impossible for that to result in prioritizing the interests of those without leverage, which UBI recipients would ostensibly be. If it looks like everyone is going to vote for UBI despite the best available propaganda against it, maybe the powers that be will just agree amongst themselves that they don't really depend on that group of voters in any critical way, so they'll just shut down or falsify voting and enforce their will with automated violence, because they prioritize maintaining control.

So probably what's needed as a prelude to direct government relief from exploitation is generally increased negotiating power for every person, which won't be a top-down thing for the most part.

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.

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.

The rich will probably just try to kill us all before that happens. We should get rid of the wealthy

With the advancements of AI, I believe UBI will eventually be needed just to keep the economy rolling. More and more tasks will get automated whether we like it or not. That’s the general direction everything is heading.

I want to believe that progress is inevitable. The living conditions for the working class are better now than they were 100 years ago. Hopefully, by the time another 100 years have passed they will have drastically improved some more.

Unfortunately, the reasons they have improved in the last 100 years are due to constant fighting against the lazy non-working class. Not some evolved sense of society.

UBI isn't a panacea, but it seems to me that we are going to need creative solutions. It's not going to solve the issues we face that are fundamentally because there is too big a gap between the wealthy people and poor people. But capitalism is failing us and the center cannot hold.

No, Americans are hateful people who cannot stand to even see a poor person buy soda with SNAP benefits. They will ensure that those displaced by AI end up begging in the street before receiving a penny from the government.

Yes. As long as scarcity exists for a given commodity/service, markets are the best way to get an accurate assessment of concerned opportunity costs.

Needless to say, the presence of markets ≠ capitalism.

Hence, yes, I do believe that that UBI is the obvious way to go forward as humans move towards labor post scarcity.

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...

Do I think that it is a possibility? Sure.

Do I think that it is likely in the near to medium term future? No.

It's way too complex for me to boil down to a simple slogan, and ain't nobody got time to read what I'd need to write to sufficiently explain and I ain't got time to explain it. Closest I can come is that UBI is "equality" in a system would currently benefit more from "equity", at least from a US-centric stand point. I am not anti-UBI by any means, just more inclined to say that a strong, need-based social safety net would be more efficient and beneficial than a thin, wide-cast net like UBI.

Contemporary unemployment rates aren't a great metric to consider for the necessity/utility of UBI. The current unemployment situation in a lot of the world is a symptom of inefficiency and instability in the system (hand wavy gesture). UBI doesn't address the underlying factors, not that it has to. But at the same time, status quo and inertia are massive forces to overcome, and "different but the same outcome" isn't the push that's needed to get over that hump. So, I just don't think we're anywhere close to getting over that barrier.

It depends on society not turning itself inside out.

If we could just pluck along where we were in the early 10's, everywhere that has socialized healthcare will eventally slowly install UBI and all the like things that come with it.

But, looking at the trends in society, wars, weather, oligarchs, and population decline, we might only have a few generations left.

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

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.

In a few places, maybe, but there's a lot of the world where governments barely function in the first place. Roads aren't even a solved problem globally. UBI for even middle income countries wouldn't happen before climate change caused such damage as to undo any progress that might maybe make UBI possible.

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.

If AI and robotics were to form viable replacements for the human workforce I honestly can't see another option.

That's a pretty big 'if' though.

I think we might have that someday, and then even after that a cashless society like star trek

Even as we go more and more into a cyberpunk dystopia, I feel like it will inevitably be introduced in some way just because it will be necessary for money to flow, just so economy doesn't collapse entirely.

I don't see how billionaires and politicians would be happy to give free money to everyone. They would think it's some kind of communism.

It's a nice idea, but given human nature we're fucked. UBI might be implemented in a few places, but I'm willing to bet everything it will never actually be universal, and those who stand to benefit the most will be the least likely to implement it.

No, not without sacrificing a welfare program or something else.

Because it'll be a hard sell to have UBI on top of WIC, SNAP, SSI, Unemployment and other welfare. Something would have to go.

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.

Not particularly, no. A lot of tech people have been pushing the idea for years largely because it means that they would know what everyone would get on a monthly basis, and could adjust their subscription fees accordingly. The real solution is just to make society more equal, would effectively accomplish the same thing (at least in the US) if there were no more billionaires and public funds were properly allowed (ie Medicare for all) to improve the basics of society.

I in my heart of hearts see UBI as unworkable and inflationary, as universal basic income doesn't set universal basic buying power which is very hard to do without a socialist system guaranteeing housing, food, etc. I also don't believe people are ok with a disconnection between work and financial value. Money is one of the few ways to quantify the value of work and humans in general have a need to feel what they do is valued, particularly if it takes up so much of human identity and what they do on a day to day.

no

I really hope so

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.

UBI is a concession to capitalists. It pacifies the working class while maintaining the system that oppresses us. At best, it's a band aid. We need full blown socialism. Not "Democratic socialism", real socialism, in which the workers own and control the means of production. That is the only path to working class liberation.

if the world is to keep going at a technologically advanced level. yes. its basically that or collapse although it won't necessarilly stop collapse.

The ruling class right now I going for a darker future. You can earn money or you can die of exposure.

realistically, yes, at least in america. the reason is simple: it makes the economy go up. if people have more money to spend -> more consumption -> more revenue for companies -> more profit -> higher stock valuations. it's very simple actually. it's very much in the interest of the state and everyone in power to do exactly that.

USian perspective:

Things are currently going in the opposite direction where safety nets are being removed.

In 2027, a huge chunk of low income people will lose Medicaid. It will be hard to see who can stay on it, because in most states with a higher minimum wage, working 80 hours would put them very close to or over the income limit. And people not working also lose it. There are problems people have that aren't considered "real" disabilities, yet prevent having jobs. Obamacare does provide a low income discount, but there are still multi-thousand dollar deductibles. My prediction is that this is going to put a massive strain on hospitals because people simply won't be able to pay. We'll probably start to see some smaller ones go under (already are, actually, but it's going to get worse, IMO).

I think the Medicaid purge is relevant because working people got jealous that unemployed and poor people had better insurance than they did in some ways, and stripping that made them feel better about their own situation. That goes completely against the spirit of UBI, which is paid to both rich and poor and people in any situation.

UBI would likely result in price hikes where the UBI money wouldn't provide a real leg up as everything just became more expensive. We just saw that happen with the COVID stimulus checks. Or for another example, McDonald's using the app provides a "discount", but not even close compared to the prices they used to have pre-COVID.

No way the entire world gets on board, and in a reasonable way. Human psychology stands in the way of that.

Whether it gets experimented and implemented more in some countries - possible - but I don't see as particularly likely or unlikely.

It's one solution to resolving the tensions of capitalism and social capitalism and the degradation of social capitalism. Whether it will be UBI or something else, and where - we will see.

No. Total war is our future. Then maybe, but we won't be alive by then

It's that or we all die of heat death.

Zionazi, Corporate, Oligarch fascim will put up a good fight. UBI is more power redistribution than any wealth redistribution. It becomes easier for everyone to make a lot of money and get richer. The objection is about reducing fascist totalitarian establishment power.

Right now only wealthy families benefit from UBI that is controlled by oligarchy. They never actually go bankrupt like the rest of us or suffer from housing instability because all of the systems that control the flow of resources and capital reward the in-group. I have lived in Texas for 20+ years and cannot understand why oil and gas money doesn't fund a sovereign wealth fund that would support the lowest income folks in an unpredictable economy. The fact that seasonal/temporary work exists but UBI doesn't is stupid. Poor people are basically trapped.

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.

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.

Probably, unless we backslide into Dune-esque feudalism, destroy ourselves, or both.

What we have right now is "democracy and equality before the law, but also your wealth at birth determines your access to everything". That seems more like a transition state, and less like a stable and self-perpetuating way of organising things. Plus, gen Z is eventually going to generate world leaders of it's own, and within that group, the basic idea of abolishing class is already really popular.

A different kind of program could do the same job of keeping people from falling off the bottom of the wealth spectrum. But, UBI is simple and thorough and beloved by policy wonks everywhere. It's not going to be whatever ill-defined USSR imitation thing Lemmy would prefer, for a number of reasons, starting with it's just so ill-defined.

but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment

Since we're talking about the world, it's worth pointing out that's mainly the US. Canada has been doing fine (obviously things are going to be rockier ahead). The rest of the world is going to be a mixed bag, but at the very least Ukraine isn't going to have a shortage of empty positions.

ubi is a bridge to abolishing capital. as long as a majority of the world agrees that capital is worth having around, we won't get ubi no matter how bad things get.

People would rather not have UBI. Give outs, without some effort, will just lead people to rot. People need the fulfillment that a good days work provides so maybe it'll be tagged to something, but if it is private -- such as your a peon, then we're just serfs of a fiefdom.

The "New Deal" that FDR enacted included work, public works projects, that got people to work; this granted them skills, which helped them enter into work for businesses. If you've ever been to a CCC project, like at some State/National Parks, then that's a demonstration of its effects. They did good work, though they did trample on indigenous nations. Of course, then we went to war in WW2, which brought home GIs ready to setup a life.

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 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"