So, another brief reaction to the Anderson book on private government, but yeah, I dont get this lady sometimes. She seems so intelligent. She's done so much research into the history of states. She even discussed the ideal of markets working and people being independent actors in them. But then...she's anti UBI. I ain't basing that off the book, but that one lecture I covered back where she called it some sort of libertarian tech bro fantasy or something.
I mean, she went through all of the other alternatives to UBI in private government weighing the pros and the cons, it almost sounded like my analysis in a way (it was at least parallel to it). She discussed unions, regulations, workplace democracy. But...she's not pro UBI.
I really think her big oversight here is that she doesn't make the connection that the problem IS forced labor. The core reason markets and their liberalism fail is because you got these people who are effectively forced by propertylessness to participate in market relations. THe voluntariness that libertarians and classical liberals assume falls apart because it exists only on paper. If we want to ensure that people are insulated from the negative effects of "private government" people need to be given the freedom to say no, not just to any job, but all jobs. Capitalism IS just a choice between masters UNTIL liberty actually becomes an actual option. Then, every job will have to be weighed against...no job. No subjugation. No subservience. No obedience. No wage slavery. And businesses will have to adjust their business model accordingly. They will have to either raise wages, automate the jobs, outsource, hire immigrants, or go out of business. And I'm fine with any of them, as long as the sausage is made and the system is sustainable.
If willingness to work for meet our basic needs becomes a problem, we can just cap the UBI at the highest sustainable amount and work toward more liberation in the future. I'm not saying it will be perfect, that nothing can go wrong, but anything that does can be compensated for. We can balance our physical needs for production with liberty, taking liberty as far as it goes, but not taking my ideas into unsustainable territory. We can rely on the other flawed methods like regulation, unions, workplace democracy, etc., as complementary to UBI, acknowedging that once again, theory may not always meet reality and some redundancy is necessary. We can make it work. I feel like the practical considerations might be the reason people dont even consider that option, they just consider work as a fact of life, but I don't. I actively think work is a great evil in life and it should be minimized, not maximized as our current society seeks to do. And I fully recognize we could've scaled down our efforts to work over the decades, but instead we've pursued maximum growth instead, believing that growth, and work, are inherent goods. I dont necessarily agree with such narratives. But still, I do recognize at some point work IS still necessary and I'm willing to compromise my ideas with reality. I feel like that's something most DON'T do. Everything is head in the clouds theory and sometimes that theory doesnt match reality. Reality can be complex, but anyone looking to develop a theory should also consider "what can go wrong?" And I do attempt to do that and also counter any possibility that comes to my attention.
But yeah. At the same time, Anderson's criticisms, based on her previous views on UBI before, seem more...ideological. She actually believes in the dignity of work nonsense. She actually is one of those traditional pro labor luddite types who fear giving up employment because they see it as giving up power and handing it over to billionaires and a state that won't help them. I believe the state can work for the people, but the people have to force it to. The reason billionaires control the system is we've gotten to a point where most people are stupid, uneducated, and ideologically buying into a lot of bad ideas and keep fighting among those. It's frustrating though. This person IS super educated but still ends up going in a totally different ideological direction. It baffles and frustrates me.
No comments:
Post a Comment