Under a free market system most of the increase in workers purchasing power would translate into bid up rent prices and higher profits for landleeches, higher rents and not much benefit for the ordinary worker.
The proposals for ubi presented by presidential candidate Andrew Yang would require recipients to stop recieving other forms of government assistance - no more food stamps, no disability benefits, no housing assistance. This would endanger disabled comrades and put them in s position of relative disadvantage and take away their currently existing accommodations within society. While the average worker may be slightly better off with ubi, a disabled person would receive much less benefit from such a change in the system.
Many proponents of ubi wish to tie it to the undoing of minimum wage laws, claiming that ubi would offset the need for such protections.
Who would pay for it? Rich people have found a myriad of wayd of avoiding taxation and so the burden of ubi may well fall on workers themselves, with higher taxes offsetting the direct payment of ubi - this may benefit lower paid workers slightly but would cause division between higher paid workers and lower paid workers. It may well end up having s very similar effect to the prebate/negative tax systems favored by libertarians.
Ultimately as Marxists we seek to empower workers with ownership over the means of production, ubi is just some crumbs thrown at workers by the owners of the means of production - tho likely paid for by the workers themselves. It will dampen revolutionary energy and cause increasing division within and with the outside of society.
Will migrants be eligible? If not will we create an underclass of struggling workers excluded from the ubi programme, unable to afford higher rents. Will this not lead to calls to restrict migration/extension of citizenship?
As a resident of the global south, where discussion of ubi is almost nonexistent and the likelihood of such programmes being implemented is very low - it seems like ubi is just rich nation people arguing over how to divide the spoils of empire and I’m pretty sure it will in no way benefit the poorest people on earth. If rich nations want to offer cash money to people in the global south, that would be great but let’s be real - that is not what is being proposed. All we will see is higher barriers to migration.
As Marxists we are not asking for “free” money. We are asking for fair pay. Ubi is a right wing band aid on capitalism and not something we can endorse. If implemented it would only make worse the situation for the poorest.
Making basic necessities (housing, public transport, food, electricity, water, internet) free at the point of use would be a better programme and one that perhaps we could find some liberal allies to support.
Making basic necessities (housing, public transport, food, electricity, water, internet) free at the point of use would be a better programme…
I bring this up often in conversations with people I know and sometimes online, and the responses I’ve gotten are some version of “who’s gonna pay for it” or “people aren’t gonna work for free.” Often followed up by “people are going to abuse the shit out of that.” Coming to the conclusion that providing these necessities for free is possible and a net good is such a massive paradigm shift for people used to the current paradigm of “earn lots of money or starve.”
In fact that may be part of why UBI is so relatively popular among working people. Many understand and have maybe even experienced a tax refund or something similar, and can conceptualize how a UBI could work within the bounds of the status quo systems they know.
It’s the system change/revolutionary suggestions for improvement that go over people’s heads, and it’s part of our job to help them learn that better things are possible.
Perhaps it’s because they already have these basic necessities covered by their wage and don’t see how such things being free would enrich their lives. Free money is more money and they perceive that as a universal improvement.
Talking to people who struggled to give their children an education during lock downs - who can’t afford even twenty dollars a month for Internet, who struggle to afford bus fares and pens and paper for their children - making such things free is very popular down here.
Ubi is still subject to the same question of who will pay for it, interesting how workers in the core perceive their tax refund as some form of “free money” and not what it really is.
the levers of economics are still under control by the upper class under UBI, all that happens is now capitalists know you have x amount of new money every month now, and that everyone has it; so prices go up to reflect this and nothing changes in terms of purchasing power relative to income.
All of the other arguments are good, but I want to add one thought I have.
One aspect of UBI that worries me is that most plans want to eliminate all current welfare policies and replace them with UBI. That makes it really easy for some future government to neuter what small benefits people currently have.
If they want to cut all welfare programs now, they have to pass tons of legislation to eliminate food banks, EBT, Social security, SSI, Section 8, HUD public housing, fuel assistance, etc. They would be putting a ton of the federal and state employees that administer these programs out of work. Most of the public has accepted that these programs are the status quo and would be against eliminating them. There are reasons these things haven’t been taken completely away during previous austerity movements.
If it’s just UBI, it’s just one number that can be adjusted down or left to dwindle due to inflation.
It’s all bandaids for the real problem, but those bandaids are currently keeping some people alive and I don’t want to trade them away for some tech bro plan that can be easily fucked with when the public starts thinking UBI is the cause of inflation or higher taxes or whatever.
Because it puts a liberal shaped bandage on capitalism, and doesn’t deal with the root causes of poverty. It may even backfire on the working classes, particularly by the deradicalizing effect it could have.
Under capitalism, UBI is the destruction of the welfare state. This is why Hayek liked the idea. It will remove the notion of guaranteed services and make things like healthcare and retirement a function of “the market”, so e.g. where before you were guaranteed a trip to the doctor, now you have to decide whether you can afford it. A middleman has been created between you and the service: a limited amount of funds. Inflation could wipe you out. The government can lag behind on increasing it, just like they do with the minimum wage. Finance could take over and jack up prices like it does with housing.
At the same time, consider the origins and nature of the welfare state itself: as a mollifying policy to prevent socialists from gaining power. There was no long-running campaign by Socdems to create the welfare state in most countries where it emerged. Instead, it appeared where there were mass anti-government movements (the United States, the UK, Canada) or where it was externally installed as part of an anticommunist bulwark (Western Europe). That pressure no longer exists in those countries. The left is almost nonexistent in these places. The welfare state is therefore not maintained by them - it is maintained by liberals that view these things as normalized entitlements. Therefore, they are susceptible to the neoliberalism that gladly vampirizes state programs through privatization. It will continue to happen until the left returns.
Here’s to hoping the next time we actually do take power so that we can permanently guarantee services
