I came across a thread on r/basicincome asking why people don't talk about UBI like they used to, and I felt like, after some consideration, I should write my honest thoughts on this matter here, as it might be very diagnostic for identifying the problems in the UBI movement, and trying to solve them. As such, I feel a need to discuss the things that in my opinion stop UBI from being more popular, and ultimately stop popular support of the idea and implementation of it from forming.
The obvious elephant in the room
Like with everything else political, we need to go back to when the modern crapshow started, and that is 2016. I honestly feel like 2016 was a realigning year, and one that did not end in a good way. The fact is, the drama associated with the alt right, the SJW left, and the neoliberal center have just made it hard to talk about ANY progressive change. You got the alt right being psychotic and threatening to tear our democracy and rights apart at their seams. You got the neoliberal center focusing on pragmatism and trying to win over moderate conservatives fleeing from the trump movement, and those guys have zero interest in any radical reforms. And then you got the SJW left screaming that everyone needs to check their privilege.
I really feel like 2016 was just a really awful year politically, and it has done things to our politics that we may be stuck dealing with for decades. Now we on the left often feel we're fighting for the soul of our democracy in preventing the alt right proto-fascists from taking over, and the democrats just hold a gun to our heads and tell us that we better vote for them or else, often cheered on by the SJW left who is more focused on identity politics above all else than actually getting things done.
Given these forces, actual policy has become secondary. No one demands ask for big things, and those who do are considered entitled. As such, there's VERY little support for ANY idea that would meaningfully improve the lives of the American people.
UBI was never popular in the first place
The OP who made the thread's frame of reference was 2020-2021, and I'm going to be honest, UBI not being in the limelight is par for the course. The fact is, the last time it was really popular, the idea died off only for the country to get taken over by Reaganism, and it literally took a once in a lifetime recession to revive it and bring it back into the public consciousness.
And that's where I came into it. My own political views are most influenced by the public consciousness around 2012, where many of us were clamoring desperately for a solution to the hellscape that was the economy at the time. And I found my answers. UBI ended up being a darned near perfect solution to our problems, and the more that I researched it, the more convinced of it I became until my politics ended up basically looking like an early version of Andrew Yang's.
And despite that, it literally took until 2020 for Andrew yang for the idea to pick up steam again. And now that moment is past for various reasons I'll get into later, and the idea is dropping into obscurity again given the modern political environment in general.
Keep in mind, it's not just UBI that's in trouble right now. It's the left in general. No one who wants any meaningful positive change can accomplish it given the current political environment. Between trumpism on the right, neoliberalism on the left, and the outsized focus on identity politics, NO ideas can really pass in this current environment.
The left HATES UBI
I know that the phase that Scott Santens and later Andrew Yang always used was "it's not left or right, but forward", but post Reaganism, the right just isn't gonna be for UBI at all. Don't even consider it right in the current context because the current right is anti government action and anti redistribution. The idea of UBI is opposed to its very principles.
But I'm starting to realize the left is no better. As I've said before. There are three factions on the left generally speaking. You got the centrists/neoliberals who want centrism and incremental change, and THEY oppose UBI because they dont like big programs that redistribute lots of wealth. They're rather conservative, don't wanna rock the boat, and the best they'll do is the CTC. And I'll get into THAT later on, but suffice to say, that's as progressive as they're going to be on the matter.
SJWs are focused primarily on identity oriented goals, and while they'll scream for reparations for black people, the idea of a UBI is just foreign to them. We give EVERYONE money? including the privileged? Including bill gates? But the money should only go toward the poor, we need to care for the poor, and only the poor. And only the underprivileged. And as such, they create these identity based political battles where white working and middle class people often turn against ideas that would otherwise help them. Because democrats are only interested in helping people that aren't them. You need some level of enlightened self interest to bring those people into the left. And that's why I came over in 2012, after spending most of my life up to that point hating welfare. Because I didn't see it as helping me or people like me. And even then they're not even for ideas that materially help people. SJWs are into moralizing circlejerks that make them look morally superior. It's the same effect that happens among middle class conservatives who do charity. They are on any other day greedy self interested jerks who preach hardcore individualism and the bootstraps mentality, but when they do charity, it makes them oh so good in the ego. And SJWs are the left wing version of that, and given the white suburbanite shift from right to left in recent years/decades, I'd argue the two mindsets are literally the same.
And then you have..."the left." Like the actual left. Well, who came before Yang? We had Bernie. And he was that once in a generation leader on the left who ended up defining young lefties politics for better or for worse, and Bernie wasn't and isn't a UBI guy. He has a lot of good policies, but UBI isn't one of them. The fact is, he's gone harder into the jobs program and green new deal direction, and given the modern young left tends to treat the dude like the right treats Ronald Reagan, as the ultimate standard bearer for progressive politics, people who run afoul of that brand, even in minor ways, are often castigated for it.
I noticed this when Yang ran in 2020 and suddenly the left started dogpiling on him because he called himself a "human centered capitalist" instead of a "democratic socialist". In practice, the two ethos aren't really...that much different. But the capitalist-socialist rhetoric is huge among young "socialists" and they seem to hate anyone who otherwise thinks similarly but calls themselves a "capitalist."
Which....kinda sabotages the left's larger success since most people arent interested in LITERAL socialism, but yeah, they look at Yang, and his unorthodox brand of politics that's pro UBI, but not necessarily pro green new deal, or focuses on unions or minimum wages, to be a bad thing. They'll even call him things like "libertarian trojan horse" and stuff (as in right libertarian, as in a pejorative).
I mean, as I see UBI, it's reforming a dysfunctional, broken welfare system into something that not only works, but liberates people from economic coercion like most mainstream left policies do not. But for them, they see it as a threat to that welfare system. And they often propose alternative solutions to problems like universal basic services instead, and socialism, and jobs programs, and blah blah blah.
And Bernie himself moved in that direction. In 2016 his attitude toward UBI was ambivalent, and more "if you want it you gotta fight for it", basically encouraging people to rally for it if they wanted it. In 2020, he got stephanie kelton, the anti UBI pro JG economist on his team, and basically went hard in that direction.
With that said, and with Bernie being the standard bearer for most of the left on the issues, UBI just ended up never getting the attention that it should have. Most people ended up going into more traditional leftist politics instead, leaving virtually no room for a pro UBI movement to grow.
UBI might attract people from all over the aisle, but there's virtually no coalition for it
UBI IS an idea that appeals to people all over the spectrum, but it also turns away people all over the spectrum too. The modern right hates it, and while some on the right see it as a way to reform our welfare state (hence why the left ends up thinking it's a "trojan horse"), those guys are a tiny minority.
And then people on the left hate it because it doesnt fit with their politics either. The three major factions on the left are centrists, leftists, and SJWs. The centrists and leftists are at odds with each other, but neither is particularly pro UBI. And of course SJWs hate it too.
So who is going to be for it in practice? There's no coalition. There's no path to viability. This is the problem with Andrew Yang that I pointed out in 2021, and why I started becoming disaffected from the left and shifted toward his forward party.
And of course among UBI oriented people across various political ideologies, there's no coalition there since different ideological factions want a different form of UBI. Right wingers want to abolish all welfare to only have a UBI, or maybe even an NIT, with the potential long term goal of phasing that out too. That said, UBI from the right really IS a trojan horse.
Then you have georgists who often spam subreddits with their crap, but are only interested in UBI on a secondary level. They primarily want a land value tax, which is a terrible approach to UBI, as it isn't very anti poverty oriented, and undermines its ability to be a way to liberate people from work, as per my ideology.
And of course, leftists are like herding cats. Traditional leftists might have little interest in UBI given their other priorities, or want UBI ON TOP of their priorities, the fact is, many of them don't prioritize UBI. Which is a shame because it offers a lot of unique benefits no other policy does.
ANd of course, I've gone in the direction of my ideology being primarily UBI focused, with it being the central politics that I build out my ideal welfare state from there. And this leads to a welfare state much different than most liberals and leftists. I have less emphasis on work, and tend to adopt strains of thought like indepentarianism, real libertarianism, and human centered capitalism into the fray.
The point is, no one who is for UBI agrees on what UBI should look like or what ideological principles it should serve, so support for it is very lukewarm.
Andrew Yang stopped advocating for it
UBI's biggest breakthrough moment in the US in recent years was from Andrew Yang's run for president on the idea. He actually did do some of the legwork to try to make a coherent case not only for it, but an entire political platform/ideology centered around it. And honestly? He was right up my alley. I might have minor disagreements with him over the issue, but we generally agree 90% of the time as far as that goes.
The problem was, Andrew Yang isn't very consistent as an advocate. One day he's for something, the next he's backing away from it, and the next you never hear him talk about it again.
This is a huge reason the left hated him, given their desire for moral purity and consistency in supporting the same positions over the years.
We saw this behavior early on with medicare for all, and while I admit I have kinda sorta gone in that direction too for pragmatic reasons, I at least try to be as consistent as possible. Yang didn't even have a recognizable healthcare policy by the end of the primary, and no one knew what he was really for.
By the way, on that subject, the only reason Im lukewarm on M4A these days is because I'm not sure we can fund it AND a UBI at the same time. If we can, that's great, and we should take that approach. But if we can't, well, I have backup public options to complement my UBI with in order to fulfill my original principles as much as realistically possible. Again, if Yang had a similar approach, he didn't explain it.
And then Yang himself distanced himself more and more from UBI. His mayoral run was never a good race to advocate for such a thing, although he seemed to in some form.
And then forward. Forward originally came off as a return to form, he quietly dropped universal healthcare from his original platform, but otherwise expanded his original cause into political reform like ranked choice voting, open primaries, and independent redistricting. Don't get me wrong these are all positive changes and I strongly endorse all 3 of them (well, at least RCV and independent redistricting, im mixed on open primaries).
The problem came when Yang decided to merge his movement with the serve america movement and renew america movement, two right wing movements run by neocon types displaced from the modern republican party. And suddenly, UBI is gone. And while Yang remains a supporter, he does not openly advocate for the idea.
In retrospect, maybe Yang was never the best guy to support the movement. I mean, he was polarizing among the left when he entered the race, and he ended up proving them right as he ended up distancing from it over time. He did a lot to advance it from 2019-2021, giving it some time in the sun, but given the broken political environment, nothing came out of it in the first place. And then he just up and abandoned it, with it losing a lot of mainstream support since then.
COVID, inflation, and "nobody wants to work any more"
A final consideration to think about is how the environment has moved since 2013 or so. Back then, when I first came across UBI, we were in the aftermath of the great recession. Unemployment was very high, jobs were hard to come by, and the economy seemed broken. This feeling extended through 2016, propelling movements like Trump's and Bernie's to the forefront. But given the cursed results of 2016 in general, the left was defeated, the democrats remained centrist, and trumpism became dominant on the right.
I've already talked about how this sucked any air out of the room for a genuine left wing movement in the US, regardless of form. But to speak a bit more, the left and right both generally agreed for various reasons the recession was over, things got back to normal and now the economy is "strong."
But then we got his with the second once in a lifetime recession in 2020. This was brought about by disease. COVID was so deadly, and so contagious, that world leaders had no choice but to shut down the entire world economy.
Now, for me, COVID just made me double down on UBI, with me saying "gee, you know what would help in this situation? A FRICKING UBI!" Seriously, from start to finish, this whole thing looked like a UBI would fix it. And we ended up passing stimulus checks and tons of aid packages to help people.It wasn't good enough but it was something. Biden even passed an expanded child tax credit which served as UBI for kids, and cut child poverty in half. For all of his flaws, that was one of the best things Biden has done, and is one of the reasons I cut him a little more slack than I would otherwise.
But you know what? I would have gone further. COVID, if anything, solidified my views that I was on the right track from the start. And honestly? COVID also proved to me that the economy doesnt need everyone working all of the time. We literally laid off 1/3 of the country. We could make that our new normal and just work less. Not saying I would FORCE people to, but an economy with everyone getting money and people choosing whether to work or not sounds pretty close to what I want.
But...the country revolted against it. You see, the right actually fights for things. The left doesn't, as we'll get to, but the right does. And they saw the threat that COVID posed to their ideology, which is why they went ahead with the homicidal idea to reopen the economy ASAP and force people abck to work. When the right's status quo is threatened, they'll work overtime to sabotage any attempts at change. And the left normally rolls over for them.
So, the right fought a literal culture war against covid, refusing to wear masks, refusing to get the shot, to acknowledge the virus. basically they wanted to go back to normal. Because the alternative threatened to overturn their values. If the masses realized this could be life from now on, maybe they'd grow accustomed to it and like it. So instead they fought against it. And over time, they won the majority of the country.
And when the vaccine came out, things opened up...all at once. And THIS caused massive shocks throughout the economy. Suddenly, everyone wanted to hire and struggled to find workers. The normally fine tuned economy was out of whack, and inflation started happening. And a "worker's shortage". And everyone blamed "free money". Apparently $1400 is enough to retire on now.
Now I have pushed back against all of these ideas, but most people are economically illiterate, and as such they'll just blindly believe that the government spending money caused hyperinflation and that lazy people drove workers shortages. Again, the right knows what they're doing. They decided to fight this as a culture war to preserve their way of life, painting everything wrong as "radical democrats and their darned big spending policies".
Honestly, even if Trump won a second term, and the GOP took congress, nothing would've changed. ANd they'd still blame the left. But the left....tries to distance themselves from things. And Biden quietly revoked as many restrictions on COVID as possible in 2022 and cut aid programs, trying to go back to normal. The right screams to go back to normal and fights for it, and the left...enables them.
Anyway, in this environment, being the "free money" guy seems unattractive, because half the country believes that Biden's spending policies and $1400 checks and unemployment caused tons of people to stay home, and refuse to work, and they're lazy, and we need to cut this stuff.
SO the child tax credit was disbanded (actually it was manchin and his conservative mentalities, but you get the idea), and people quietly distanced themselves from all of this. And now no one even wants to touch UBI. Yang still seems for it, but given his obligations to his new party, he aint really defending it either. So the idea is once again just dropping out of awareness.
Conclusion
As such, the environment is currently hostile to UBI, and the seeds of the movement are sprouting in hostile soil that will eventually kill them off. I still believe in the idea. If anything, the older I get, the more pro UBI I get. From 2020 to 2023, I've gone in the opposite direction of being EVEN MORE pro UBI, to the point that I've pushed back against the bernie leftists on the subject and retooled my ideological priorities around it, which is one of the reasons i aint really keen on Williamson or West this time around (neither are pro UBI). And I do think that it is THE answer.
But it seems obvious that the movement has challenges. It lacks a unifying coalition or ideology behind the movement. And the political environment is such where in this 'strong economy" with low unemployment and high inflation, no one has the stomach for the idea.
Honestly, this is another reason why I'm fine with just going Biden in 2024 for the time being. This environment won't last forever, and honestly, an economy this "good" is rare, and even with it the core problems that drive me to the idea remain. Jobs are still oppressive. People still cant afford to live. Mainstream ideologies will never solve our problems. But maybe one day UBI might.
But we might have to wait a few years for the environment to settle down where we can realistically talk about the idea again. 2024 isn't our year. 2028 might be.
Anyway, as a UBI advocate, indepentarian/real libertarian/human centered capitalist, etc, I think that we need to do a better job making a more comprehensive case for UBI. This is what I've been trying to do over the past year as i toyed with writing a book on the subject, but then not really getting anywhere. I'm still thinking this stuff through. I'm still trying to put the finer points on what arguments need to be made and where to go from here. But I don't think it's good enough to just advocate for UBI in a vacuum. We need to advocate for an actual ideology that supports UBI as its centerpiece and then argue for that. Many writings I've made on here have tried to accomplish that. That's why im always critical of everyone else ideologically. All of the old ideologies have problems, because they all lack the proper exegesis on the economy to get to the core of its problems and how to solve them. And we need to make our own that makes a case FOR UBI and complementary policies if we want to succeed. And yeah. I'll keep working on doing this I guess.
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