#84

Of course it’s technically not state money etc

#85

pint of tea!

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#86

Standard hangover breakfast at uni: off to the union for a fry up, pint of tea (in the same fluorescent pint glasses you were drinking snakebite out of the night before) and a can of irn-bru.

Until we discovered the cafe down past East Sands that did takeaway square sausage rolls. Then it was two of those, bottle of irn-bru, and sitting on a freezing bench while the wind off the North Sea numbed you until you couldn’t feel anything at all, never mind the hangover.

Happy days.

#90

The easiest way to make the world a better place is to not be a lazy consumer. It’s all well and good setting high standards for politicians but we need to set them for ourselves too. Make sure your energy provider invests in renewables, don’t shop at supermarkets unless you have to, don’t buy clothes made in sweat shops, it’s all stuff we know we ought to do and it will probably make as much difference as how we vote.

If we’re talking about general policies to improve society, I’d drop the business rates for pubs, cafes and restaurants, and lower the duty on sales of alcohol at licensed premises. We need communal spaces that don’t cost more than the minimum wage to use, especially as people are pushed into smaller and smaller accommodation.

#91

Might do a bit more work.

#92

Another good option would be to phase out nationalism.

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#93

‘a one-time cash payment for voluntary sterilisation for others’

sounds far too close to eugenics for my liking

#94

Pfft, will they let me move there? Will they bollocks.

#95

Or a free American flag

#96

Well of course not but that’s assuming people would immediately quit their jobs and skin a fat one and spend the day tossing it off for 15000 free grand. That doesn’t take account of the countless anecdotal evidence we have of people who either acquire or luck into vast sums of money and carry on working anyway, or else volunteer their time somewhere simply because we’re apes, and apes can’t go for long without satisfying the primitive, powerful need to feel part of a larger community, and more importantly a contributor to the success of that community.

Altho I doubt any UBI scheme would pay the equiv of a full time wage, not least because it would blow a huge hole in the idea that currency has any value beyond what we ascribe to it.

The labour issue is one I’m most interested in anyway - who would quit their job flat out to spend all day tugging one out over bukkake porn, who would reduce their hours and pursue that concept album they’ve been dreaming of making, who would keep working but farm out some of their hours to a friend in need of extra cash or the social aspects of a job? I’d wager a lot of nurses and doctors, lawyers and veterinarians, for instance, would stay on, maybe tweak their hours slightly. I say this with some authority since my partner is a nurse and I’m 100% certain it would take a lot more than free money, even a living wage amount, to get her or her friends to just walk out on their jobs - they’re all smart enough that if they wanted to they could be working some shitty desk job making twice what they are now. So something obviously keeps them at bedside trying to help other people beyond money.

Consider also that there are thousands of volunteers in hospitals and hospices and care homes who are prevented from spending more time helping others by the requirements of their day jobs. I speak to them all the time and I’ve no cause to believe they’re lying. I’ve done plenty of volunteering myself at crisis support services and I’ve never made much money from the full time jobs I had while doing it, and nor did I expect any big financial reward from the volunteering in the form of a career or resume boost. Altruism is a powerful motivator by itself, the desire to help another living being can override concerns about money and whatall, particularly if there’s at least a basically liveable amount of money rolling in from a combo of your UBI and the hours you pick up at the record shop/your online business/your whatever.

Guess I’m just curious to see if we may be pivoting, sluggishly, towards a genuine questioning of our relationship to labour and therefore the grinding machine controlling everything else.

#97

Some sort of UBI could be beneficial in some imagined world somewhere. In a post-work society, where automation bore responsibility for the bulk of economic output, and didn’t exist to extract wealth from certain groups and place it into the hands of others, and didn’t pose any risks itself in terms of human security and flourishing. A society that had been working towards developing strong rehabilitative and supportive institutions and practices such that post-work allowed for some sort of collective triumph of the human spirit, and didn’t simply become a breeding ground for addiction, violence and suicide.

Without breaking the power of finance and other vested interests, and re-imagining the method of exchange and the function of markets, UBI would just become another means of rent-seeking by capital. If it’s plausible at all, it’s only once we’re far down the road in defeating capitalism and fashioning ourselves a better future through engagement in political struggle.

#98

Some sort of UBI could be beneficial in some imagined world somewhere.

But this accepts that the world we have now is the real world, when in actuality what constitutes modern society is a number of ridiculous fantasies which unfortunately have extremely bloody and catastrophic consequences on the worker and her family and community. So I totally agree with you and politely object at the same time, because this:

…isn’t a million miles from what I’ve been haphazardly arguing, which is that some catalyst for the struggle and therefore the destruction of the fantasy is needed, and UBI could be a tiny, miniscule step towards achieving that. Again, the demons running the machine seem to conjure money out of nothing whenever we need to kill a load of brown people or bomb a desert somewhere or buy guns for literally no fucking practical purpose, so there’s a reason for their reluctance to explore UBI beyond liquidity, and I feel it’s precisely because it represents a (very tepid, very minor) form of redistribution which could empower many of the disenfranchised and make their synapses form connections otherwise blocked by the atomisation of capitalism as it currently exists.

It’s in no way a solution or social cure all but to dismiss it out of hand is bonkers.

#99

It’s not dismissing it out of hand. It’s saying that certain qualifications need to be in place in order to prevent UBI from simply behaving as a form of rent. None of them will happen in the near future.

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#101

How many people serve you?

Tell us more about your dominion.

#103

isn’t there a means-adjustment mechanism like current child benefit* that could be introduced to make high income individuals (rather than households as with child benefit) pay tax on their UBI/benefit which after a certain amount means it’s not worth claiming the UBI in the first place.

I’ve not really tracked the UBI discussion much but there was a good Radio 4 analysis about it:

I think a few benefits that haven’t been mentioned in this discussion on here included:

  • improvement of uptake to benefits that people are entitled to via an UBI rather than the current system.
  • reduction of stigma in claiming benefits
  • ability to start/stop/change job without having to restart/end benefits.

*Child benefit is daft because you can be a household on a joint income of £60,000 (one on £60,000 and one on £0) and not be entitled to any child benefit (e.g. you pay back in additional tax what you get in CB), but you can have a joint income of £99,999 and get the full whack of CB and pay back no additional tax. Obviously there are technicalities based on net income but the point remains

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#105

What you’re saying is that we should wait for the problem to get to the extreme conclusion before we attempt to address it? We don’t need a completely post-work society for a basic income to be favourable. We already live in a post regular-contract society. If people are going to be working “flexible hours” or using uberised forms employment to provide income then having a base level salary which can be supplemented in these ways is a good idea. The system will come into its own as technological redundancy increases and more people turn to the gig economy increasingly for work but it’s already happening.

Of course, the tax burden should fall greater on the rich. As the basic idea of this is that the owners of capital are making all the money (again, already seen in the widening inequality gap) that their needs to be a mechanism to redistribute wealth to those who are neither owners of capital nor any longer benefiting through the productive utilisation of capital in the form of salaried employment.

Sure, there are other ways of structuring a benefit system to do this and other welfare payments e.g. for parents with children, people with disabilities etc. would probably still be needed but on the whole it seems like the basic income is a solution that could begin to address the problems in the world of work in the present and near future and it’s definitely one that should be explored in various guises.

#107

Free Satpal Ram

#109

Fucking tune, this

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#124

The japanese have just sacked a load of people and banged some robots down

#126

  1. Loads and loads and loads more community centres that can be rented at a minimal rate per hour. Loads of 'em.*

  2. 100% tax on any income over N** times the median income.

  3. A Velodrome and swimming pool in every connurbation over a population of X***.

*TBC. How does, say, one for every 3000 people sound? To replace tatty old freezing cold church halls and whatnot.
**TBC. How does, say, 5 sound? No-one’s legit doing more than a week’s work in a day. Work more and get paid more, but you’re not earning it so you’re not keeping it. The numbers in these two tables are madness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom#Income_by_occupation
***TBC. How does, say, 100,000 sound for Velodromes? One for each of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom And let’s plump for 3000 people again for swimming pools - attach them to the community centres to save on running costs (and spend that money on running a vegan cafe/canteen in each one). Velodromes and swimming pools are great. And there’s way too much focus on football in this country. (Where this would result in a travel time of more than 90 minutes, another shall be built to remedy that.)

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