Re:Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
by hyko on Thursday July 30, 2020 @04:04AM
(#23995740)
I’m not really concerned about the first two, because they all apply to any low income. UBI will not–and is not intended to–remove relative poverty.
The third is a potential issue, but the question is whether it will be an improvement over what happens now; i.e. many don’t get the chance to administer their own funds or even have them administered on their behalf, we just skip straight to “it’s all on you”. A credible UBI would likely require a massive expansion of redistribution, because we spend so little on poverty relief today. True poverty relief would require giving people a lot of money, and that is by definition very expensive.
The fundamental issue I see with UBI in 2020 is that it must ultimately be paid for with massive productivity gains (in the face of many hard structural challenges), with no real evidence of where they will come from.
The third is a potential issue, but the question is whether it will be an improvement over what happens now; i.e. many don’t get the chance to administer their own funds or even have them administered on their behalf, we just skip straight to “it’s all on you”. A credible UBI would likely require a massive expansion of redistribution, because we spend so little on poverty relief today. True poverty relief would require giving people a lot of money, and that is by definition very expensive.
The fundamental issue I see with UBI in 2020 is that it must ultimately be paid for with massive productivity gains (in the face of many hard structural challenges), with no real evidence of where they will come from.