So...I just saw someone ask the question online about whether wealth accumulation under capitalism is bad. Left wingers seem to think so. Socialists tend to have their labor theory of value. The value of the products produced should go to the workers. For all the talk about how socialists are so out of "class envy" and how the rich "earned" their wealth, the reality is that the wealthy don't really work for their wealth, they earn it out of wealth accumulation that is paid for by the labor of others, as the market naturally siphons wealth upward.
In theory, I'm not necessarily against wealth accumulation. I'm also not a "labor humper" so to speak where I really believe in this hardcore "if you earned it, you are morally entitled to it in objective terms." I believe we link labor to income in order to incentivize labor, and it's only morally valid insofar as that produces good results.
In theory, I'm not opposed to someone shirking their "moral duty to labor" by collecting passive income. Hell, a slogan I like to use against the far left is that under socialism, everyone is a worker, in my ideal world, everyone is a capitalist. In a way, UBI is like, capitalism for everyone. Everyone gets a collective share and a collective stake in society as a whole based on the labor for others. For the right, this is immoral because it's "socialism" and socialism is the government taking money from those who "earned it" and giving it to those who did not. For the left, it's immoral because the workers are the ones who earned it and the bourgeoisie didn't.
With me, again, I'm okay with some segment of income to be tied to labor because...well...if we didn't, no one would work and if NO ONE worked, society would fall apart. BUT...I don't value working for a living for its own sake, like that it in itself has moral value, you understand me? And that's where society goes wrong. We tend to worship this idea of people working for a living and earning money. There isn't INHERENT value in the idea. It's just an idea that we practice because it's a necessity for any system, capitalist and socialist to function.
But let's face it, if we could, in a hypothetical future, have like some sort of techno communism where no one worked, and everyone just got a share of the collective income generated by machines, well, I'd be fine with that. Of course, we don't live in such a world, or anything near such a world, we do need human labor, so I advocate for a hybrid system. I do think that UBI should be seen as a dividend, a share in the nation's wealth, where every citizen, as a birthright, should be entitled to it just by virtue of existing. How high it should be is entirely dependent on what can be sustained. Ideally, it should be enough where people don't have to work, but if it's too high, where no one works, well, that won't work either. So again, it's what can be sustained.
And if people choose not to work from it, then that's fine, as long as the number isn't so high that it isn't sustainable. And as far as capitalsits and their profits go, I'm fine with ownership to some extent generating profits. In some ways, it's kind of necessary for that motive to exist. Just as people work to earn money to live, we need financial motives to encourage people to innovate and start new businesses, and if that eventually grows to "I make so much money, I no longer have to work any more", then so be it. Let not working, and coasting on past work with passive income be part of the so called "American dream."
My main moral issue with the economy is actually this: that some people live that way, and the masses are just expected to wait for these guys to "create jobs" so fill THEIR pocketbooks where THEY don't have to work, but we're expected to just work for a living and be de facto slaves, dependent on THEM. That's bull####, and that's where the resentment comes in for ME. We shouldnt be expected to rely on the glorious "job creators" to "earn" a living. This weird version of capitalism as we practice it is a dystopia that conditions people to be de facto slaves, with those people collecting passive income from the labor of others. So in a sense, I do come back around to kinda, sorta, agreeing with the socialists.
However, unlike them, I dont romanticize labor or being a worker. Rather, I see work as unpleasant, undesirable, and ultimately want to pursue a world where we can all live like capitalists. As long as some work has to be done, and as long as some people want to work, work should remain a part of our economy. BUT...rather than spreading the concept as widely as possible, I support minimizing it. I support working LESS. I support making it more voluntary. We should give people a UBI. We should reduce the work week. And honestly? In order to pay for it, tax the rich, HEAVILY.
The one exception I'll make of my relative neutrality toward wealth aquisition is that if one acquires too much, eventually it will lead to a society where wealth simply attracts more wealth, and people can spend their vast sums of money manipulating the political system to their ends. We should harden our political system against economic influence and get money out of politics, and again, we should heavily tax the wealthy beyond a certain point to slow or discourage massive wealth acquisition that comes at the expense of society. Beyond that, wealth acquisition is a motivator that is important to the functioning of the economy. Again, it's a motivator, nothing more. And it's valuable insofar as it accomplishes that goal.
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