Grew up in a rural area, of about 3K people. Lot of farmers, and this was the '90s so lot of broke farmers. (Family farming economically collapsed in the mid '90s and is hard to make work even today).
(Big alcohol problem. County next county over had a huge _huge_ meth problem. Got the impression they were a former logging/mining town, then things got Bad.)
Heard a lot of stories about folk whose pride wouldn't let them use welfare, and some "avoid charity of any kind" people. Kind of folk where it'll be a hard pill to swallow to use charity to feed your family. (They'd do it, but only when things got bad and then only once or twice)
I'm not sure what would happen to these people if you said, "Hey, here's $30,000/year for free (avg income, today, of that area), for nothing, when you broke your back for $15,000/year last year."
It's going to be an interesting day when these people want to work, NEED to work to earn money (because elsewise it's charity, and you've failed as a man (woman?)), but there are "no" jobs for humans. Unless suddenly magically employers start paying good money for 6 hour/week blue collar minimally training positions (so probably not robot repairfolk, although maybe). But this is a dream because (late stage) capitalism.
What if we create factory amusement parks, where people go to build things for a wage that nobody will ever buy? Does that seem any less patronizing?
Everybody is going to have to shift their sense of identity, self-worth, ambition, etc. in the years to come. I don't see any way out of this.
If the problem is that there are no jobs, then "faking it" seems so much worse than simply providing a basic income, and encouraging education, non-profits, civil service, startups, etc.
Attitudes are going to need to shift, but that doesn't happen overnight. That happens over the course of multiple generations... which is the issue, because economic shifts are much faster now.
The populations we're discussing don't want either of those. They want to have back what their culture remembers as... not glory days, but days when hard work was valued and was enough.
Welcome to how many of us feel about wage-labor in the first place.
>In another, also very important sense, a basic income will destroy them. Not by death, but by unmaking who they are.
I need a good term for the extreme sense of entitlement inherent in yelling loudly, "Yes, definitely, give us a more brutal capitalism in which market forces override workers' preferences!" and then appending, "Except when doing so would violate my sense of identity".
Since when was imagined personal identity so sacred, let alone that the imagined personal identity of this particular demographic should be far more sacred than the imagined personal identities of everyone else put together?
What gives these people a right to live out their "identity" as blue-collar wage-workers, receiving high wages while rejecting unions at every opportunity, while people like me don't get to live out our "identities" as other things? Should we build custom-made bubble realities for everyone in which we can all pretend the world works exactly the way we want it to, and we never have to face hard truths about ourselves? Should society pay certain friends of mine to be artists, just because they self-identify as artists? Can I have a tenured academic job instead of a computer engineering job just because I "self-identify" with the values of academia more than with those of industry?
Jobs don't exist so anyone can actualize the little movie in their head about The Good Life. Jobs exist to make money for the employer, and arguably to exploit the worker. There are lots of useful things that need doing: infrastructure to repair, housing to build, communities to maintain. I support employing people to do those things: whoever wants to work should be handed the tools and told to show up on Monday because we're building a goddamn high-speed rail system like we should have done almost a decade ago.
I don't support building people's entire lives and livelihoods on lies.
You're free to believe that. You may very well be right. I don't know. For my own part, I think that they're unlikely to agree with you any time soon and likely to continue acting in what they see as their own interests.
No, I believe it's wrong that government policy and macroeconomics should be shifted away from the norm for the sake of one particular cultural identity. Instead, I want it shifted so that everyone can live how they think they ought to, without markets compelling anyone.
The unfairness is in Bob getting his unprofitable coal-mining job subsidized while Alice the starving artist can't even get a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and of course Eve the Executive getting to exploit everyone else for her own profit.
I'm saying that lots of people don't want change, and telling them they must change is unlikely to be persuasive. In a democracy, this has practical consequences.
You're completely right. There are lots of these people. I simply do not believe that this number is large enough to significantly alter the analysis I have offered.
Am I generalizing? Of course I'm generalizing. There's no other way to meaningfully talk about tens of millions of unique, special, individual human beings.
Capitalism got us this far, but it's rapidly approaching the limits of its usefulness. Time to move beyond it, and not to some centralized government planning, either. Why do we need massive government power structures when all other jobs are being eliminated?
Except... it's still being paid without working for it. You wind up with all the same problems no matter what you call it.
If you frame it as a gift from your betters (which is how it is currently framed), yes, you have problems.
If you frame it as something you're owed as a human right, there are many fewer problems.
The framing does in fact matter. All the problems you mention are not inherent in the situation. They can be addressed.
We're discussing people who are inevitably going to view a basic income as charity. You can tell them it's their human right. You can tell them it's what society owes everyone. You can tell them they deserve it for existing.
I honestly believe that how you frame it isn't going to matter. Not with the populations and identities we have today. They're going to see those Other People over there paying them to shut up, sit down, and be useless.
If you want to discuss how people who identify differently would react differently, that's cool and fun. I don't believe we're in a scenario where that's a relevant discussion, though.
Right. And what I'm getting at is removing those Other People from the equation. I see that as a completely essential part of the process, and one not many people have come around to yet.
We can't have overlords of any sort for this to work out well. Not a government handing out checks. Not a few companies in Silicon Valley handing out checks. Ownership (if the concept even survives) of the sources of production and wealth generation must be shared equally by all.
For it to work out well, at least.
We can easily not go down that radical path, of course. Continue with small modifications to the systems we have. No doubt that's what we'll try at first. But as you're pointing out, that's not going to be a satisfactory solution. I agree with you on that point.
So I think it's worth looking at what the ideal would look like and then try to find the least painful path in that direction.
UBI as currently envisioned is a half-measure. A stopgap at best.
Their claim is that they "earned it" and "those people" didn't earn it. Ok, well if it's obvious that nobody earned something then you have the same problems.
The majority of american workers aren't going to see a paycheck in the mail and say "Wow, great this means I can spend more time whittling/hiking etc..."
I do not in any way, shape, or form believe that "work" is the only path to fulfillment for humanity. I do think that in much of the rust belt, a majority of the population has incorporated the dignity of work into their identities.
You are absolutely correct that a great many people love to do other things and find fulfillment in them. I simply do not believe that this number is large enough to significantly alter the analysis I have offered.
Yes, but the problem is to stop insulting people for taking that option by constantly making them "prove" to society that they "suffer enough" to be given automation-money.
Work gives people a purpose - even if it isn't the best purpose, it also gives people a community - even if it isn't the best community.
I think people in the tech world fail to actually understand the mindset of the majority of workers. They need to watch Dirty Jobs more.
Let's also talk about the fact that under a basic income, these people will be absolutely miserable.
They don't want money. They want work. Their identities revolve in no small part around dignity rooted in a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. Accepting charity is humiliating for them because it implies they cannot earn money. How do you think these people would feel about the prospect of being paid a basic income for life when they cannot work?
It's humiliating beyond words. It's patronizing as all hell. It strips them of all respect, all dignity. It leaves them unable to look at themselves in the mirror, because they are now worthless in their own eyes. What do you think that does to a person?
I'll tell you. Meth, heroin, obesity, heart disease... and burning hatred.
In one sense, you're absolutely right. Only something like a basic income can really save them. In another, also very important sense, a basic income will destroy them. Not by death, but by unmaking who they are.