The richest and most powerful will lobby for universal basic income because it will benefit them at some tipping point, where the masses will need to be subsidized to keep the consumption machine running, maybe?
I think the middle class feels safer with the notion that the economy will not survive without them, thus whatever system results must maintain some sort of middle class. I don’t think this is true at all, while not ideal many places continue to operate just fine with a few very rich and everyone else very poor.
The consumption machine has a wealth effect which is an artifact of a ponzie economy. This mathematically cannot last forever, even if it has lasted for a long time and will continue to last for a long time. What matters to wealth is production. Traditionally highly technical production needed a decent middle class, but efficiencies mean fewer such people are needed to maintain the same proficiency. Coupled with globalization where a smart person anywhere can design technical things that can then be used everywhere. This decouples the wealth of the rich from the health of the middle class and the rich would be happily sacrifice the middle class in the alter of cheaper labor and will whisper sweet nothings in your ear while doing so. Not them personally but the people they pay to operate on their behalf. To me it makes perfect sense to promise UBI to undermine resistance and then not deliver on that promise to again undermine resistance. I think the middle class would be fools to believe that UBI will come and save them.
yeah, to bargain one needs strenght, on such scenario, UBI would mostly like benevolence of the powerful to stabilize their power structures. The masses will comply with UBI or not
UBI will benefit them in the sense that work will no longer be a right; since now you get that government pay check. No one wants to keep the consumption machine running for your benefit. The rich can always get a bigger yacht and more holiday residences.
UBI is a power play and the worst outcome for a sovereign citizen.
In a post scarcity society, capitalism dies as will most of the population on Earth. The elite will live in an amazing utopia with AI slaves and like a few million fellow humans.
Eugenics has always been the end game for the monarch class. Capitalism was a stepping stone.
cjbgkagh|1 year ago
The consumption machine has a wealth effect which is an artifact of a ponzie economy. This mathematically cannot last forever, even if it has lasted for a long time and will continue to last for a long time. What matters to wealth is production. Traditionally highly technical production needed a decent middle class, but efficiencies mean fewer such people are needed to maintain the same proficiency. Coupled with globalization where a smart person anywhere can design technical things that can then be used everywhere. This decouples the wealth of the rich from the health of the middle class and the rich would be happily sacrifice the middle class in the alter of cheaper labor and will whisper sweet nothings in your ear while doing so. Not them personally but the people they pay to operate on their behalf. To me it makes perfect sense to promise UBI to undermine resistance and then not deliver on that promise to again undermine resistance. I think the middle class would be fools to believe that UBI will come and save them.
kwere|1 year ago
csomar|1 year ago
UBI is a power play and the worst outcome for a sovereign citizen.
hermannj314|1 year ago
Eugenics has always been the end game for the monarch class. Capitalism was a stepping stone.