Individual income vs household income, different ways to view UBI

 So...given I support a UBI of $13,200, some people might wonder if that's enough to really live on. And I have to say, I understand the concern. Generally speaking, I support the level of UBI for various reasons. First of all, I base it on the federal poverty line. The US federal poverty line is $12,880, and I rounded up to $13,200 to ensure no one lives "in poverty" as we define it. But, not everyone can live on just that. I mean, your typical rent is like $1100 a month in and of itself in the US, so your entire income goes to rent before even considering other needs. Before I address that directly though, i do want to focus on the other reasons I support the level I do. The other reasons largely involve sustainability. UBI is expensive. It requires almost a 20% flat tax on top of the existing system just to make work. And that's on top of removing some existing social services to help pay for it. The higher the UBI is, the higher the taxes are. The more this is a drain on productivity. Not to mention the higher the UBI is, the less people will be inclined to work for more money in the first place. So....if we make the UBI too high, the system will fall apart. While I am an indepentarian, and I support MINIMIZING coercion, I understand at this point in time we may not be able to FULLY get there. We should reduce the amount of necessary labor needed to be done in society as much as we can, to reduce the NEED to MAKE people work, but we're not gonna be able to just do that all over night. So...for me, I support the levels I do because it's what I feel like I can make work. It might not be the end goal, but it's what I think would get the ball rolling, while reducing coercion and getting the ball rolling.

Even then, one thing that also factors into this, is the fact that I also expect people to...you know, live together. People live in family units. College kids have room mates typically. Older adults have partners and children. Some families might live in a multigenerational manner where you have 3 of more generations in a home. And in these homes, every adult will be getting $13,200, and every child will be getting $4,800. So let's just look at how UBI scales in various situations.

One person trying to live alone: $13,200

Single mother with 1 kid: $18,000

Single mother with 2 kids: $22,800

2 adults, no kids: $26,400

2 adults, 1 kid: $31,200

2 adults, 2 kids: $36,000

3 adults:  $39,600

2 grandparents, 2 younger adults, 2 kids: $62,400 + 80% of whatever social security they'd currently get

Jon and Kate + 8: $64,800

6 college kids renting a frat house: $79,200

You get the picture. Even with the paltry UBI amount I support, not everyone is gonna live alone. Given the configurations in which people generally live, it's gonna add up really fast. Your typical household of 3 people might have 2 adults and 1 child in it, and that might amount to $31,200, which is similar to the $15 "living wage" that many liberals currently champion. So yeah, suddenly that $1100 rent payment doesn't seem so bad. 

Is this system perfect? No. Some people might see a single mom with 2 kids as more worthy of aid than 6 kids with a frat house. But, here's a few things to keep in mind. if we didn't give everyone a UBI as a right of citizenship, then we would need to do it in a more conditional way. Which would involve lots of means testing form filling, and that tends to have a lot of issues. It means people would be punished for living together. If you move in with a girlfriend or boyfriend, your $13200 UBI being reduced to a $4800 UBI isnt good. And then if you leave it would require more paperwork, which would cause problems with domestic abuse situations, leading to gaps in coverage, potential legal action between former partners, etc. No, it's best to give every adult their own UBI. So why do I give less to kids? Well, it's another balancing act of mine. If I gave parents with multiple kids NO UBI, then that family would live in poverty and be forced to work, and those guys are some of the most vulnerable in society. So that's not good. But...I've also had a lot of UBI advocates be opposed to giving ANY UBI to kids. Why? because if you give someone $13k a year for having kids...they're gonna have tons of kids. ANd what's a common argument against welfare? That it's said to incentivize people to have kids to take advantage of the system. I want a system that isn't cruel to parents, but also isn't overly generous to the point I'm literally encouraging people to be baby factories for cash. So...given the additional person metric for the federal poverty line I base my UBI on is $4540 for each additional person in a household, I ended up rounding up to $4800, or $400 a month. Again, this is to maintain a sense of relative neutrality toward kids. To keep kids out of poverty, while also not incentivizing having them.

So is this UBI enough? Well, in some cases it might be too much, subjectively speaking, and in some cases it might be barely enough or not enough. It really depends. All I know is if I changed it at all, it would cause greater problems than those it would solve. I want to avoid turning the UBI into more bureaucratic welfare, which is what would happen if we really decided what people "deserve" in various situations. And I also want to avoid making the system so generous that no one wants to work, or to have tons of kids just for money. It's a balance you need to make with UBI. But yeah, generally speaking, I'm looking at UBI from a primarily household basis, looking at actual people I know. 

One of my friends would get $39,600, having 2 roommates. 

Another friend would get $31,200, due to living with his spouse and kid.

Some might get more, some might get less. I'd say around $30k is what I'd say the average is for a household roughly. So...UBI in that context, is fairly generous. You could rent a place for $1k a month, and then spend the rest on other necessities. It wouldn't be living super well, but you'd be able to get by. And given how I live in a pretty run down city where tons of people live on minimum wage and public assistance anyway, I could see this greatly improving most peoples' lives. If you try to live alone, it might be too little. I mean, maybe you could find a flea bag place for $500-600 a month, and then live frugally from there, but it would be hard. Not impossible, but hard. For most households though, it would likely be adequate, and as I said, I feel like changing the UBI in any way from the structure that I support it in would cause more issues than it would solve.

Why indepentarianism is better than georgism

 So I've beaten up on georgism a lot on this blog, mainly due to my indepentarian perspective, but tonight I got to hear Karl Widerquist discuss georgism a little in his lectures, since he talked about private property and different models of property rights. He acknowledged that both is theory and real libertarianism were offshoots of georgism (something I'd vaguely agree with given all three are forms of "social libertarianism" broadly speaking), but indepentarianism seems to go a lot further than just georgism. At this point I'm gonna be giving my thoughts, so this isn't really just regurgitating what Widerquist said, but kinda taking it in my own direction.

Georgism always came off to me as a fancy version of right libertarianism. In this system, people have a right to the fruits of their labor, but the land belongs to everyone and people should be compensated for land claims. This seems intuitive on some level, but as I saw it, georgism just ends up starting with right libertarianism, and then deciding land value taxes are the only just tax. So they like land taxes, to the point of supporting it (and pigovian taxes) as the only forms of just taxes, but then support no other taxes. As I've demonstrated in my previous articles on georgism, this just leads to creating a system in which the government becomes the ultimate landlord. Everyone pays taxes to the government for owning land, but are given a UBI ("citizen's dividend") back. And if you pay less than you get, from having a smaller or less valuable parcel of land, you may get more than you give in taxes. However, let's face it. This doesn't really change a lot in and of itself. It doesn't necessarily make land cheaper. If anything it could make it more expensive in the long term as you never own the land outright. So everyone is paying rent to a landlord, or taxes to the government, and since everyone has to occupy 3D space, everyone will be subject to these taxes just by existing in 3D space. This would force many people to become productive in order to maintain their access to their homes. Which...forces them into wage slavery. Some might claim that they won't HAVE to becausr their UBI would be a net benefit to them, but that form of UBI would be severely weakened and not really designed to free people from the system. it might compensate those with below average value land claims, but it won't free many people at all from being forced to participate in the system in the first place.

Widerquist plainly states that we not only need guaranteed shelter, but also things like food, water, healthcare, etc. And while giving people those goods directly can be "inflexible" as he calls it, it's better to give them a UBI IMO unless there's a market failure, like exists for healthcare. Honestly, indepentarianism is just a much more robust theory. It understands people cannot be free if forced into the service of others, and seems aimed at addressing all coercive relationships, not just those between landlords and renters. While that is one issue within capitalism, the employer-laborer system is also exploitative. In order for people to be free they need to be immune to all coercive relationships possible. So unlike georgism that's like, you deserve to have access to land and then you're on your own, which just ends up leaving you to be a wage slave in the grand scheme of things, widerquist's (and van parijs' too, for that matter, as its a close sister theory to widerquist's IMO) theory ends up expanding on this and recognizing people need to be free from all coercive relationships.

Which is why I dunk on georgism. While I see where they're coming from, their views seem extremely dogmatic, fixated on one problem, and seem to miss the forest for the trees. It's a good precursor of modern 21st century political ideologies, but it really ends up just being very dated at this point, and not that good.

As far as the land value tax? Eh, I can accept it, but only under certain limitations. Replacing local property taxes because it's more progressive for one. Or, if done nationally, it's done in a way to only tax obvious serial exploiters of land ownership. Everyone should have access to A home. You should have a primary residence free of taxation, as a right of citizenship, given you actively use it as a primary residence (as opposed to letting it sit vacant or renting it out to others), and it should presumably be less than extravagant. Meaning, if you have some sort of huge mansion or estate that's like many many times the average home value, maybe it should be taxed. There comes a point where your land claim gets so big that it's arguably actively denying others the ability to live in a place of their own. When it gets that big it should be taxed. If you're owning secondary properties and renting them out, they should be taxed, etc. I wouldn't just put a blanket tax on everyone. You can't solve the landlord issue with capitalism by making the government a landlord everyone has to pay their dues to just to exist in 3D space. UBI is intended to be an income you could live on with no coercion. That ideally means not just rent, but also food, water, climate control, other necessities, etc. I understand even my UBI may not be adequate, at least on a single person basis, for all of those things, but on a household level (so say 2-3 people with a UBI of roughly $30k-ish between all household members), it should be just about right.And if we throw in universal healthcare, it should work.

So, the republicans plan to run on nothing for 2022...

 So, this should come as no surprise, but the GOP plans to run on literally nothing for 2022. No policy, nada, just...dems bad. And you know what? Sadly, it will probably work. With this two party system, voters are locked into choosing between 2 parties, and often times who wins is just a referendum on the other side. If one side is in office, the other side starts winning because people hate them. Then things shift the other way. No one cares about actually appealing to voters any more, it's just running on "not the other guy."

Given the hole the dems have dug themselves into, themselves being light on policy. Failing to have an ambitious agenda (in my opinion) in the first place, and then failing to accomplish even a sizeable fraction of that, and then having to contend with covid as science deniers refuse to take their medicine (unless it's horse dewormer) while claiming any attempt to force them to is tyranny. And the disease spreads, and they lift the restrictions anyway, and people stop caring, and inflation rages on as turning the economy off and on again caused the finely tuned machine to no longer be so finely tuned, it's a mess. Biden has very few notable accomplishments under his belt. He's been sabotaged at every turn, often by the most conservative members of his own party. The dude doesn't even try. He's been ineffectual. And there are real issues that need to be addressed that aren't being addressed.

The GOP is best to just keep their mouth shut and run on nothing. Why? Well, anyone who follows politics closely beyond cults of personality and actually cares about policy will know that the GOP is ideologically bankrupt. If they announced any goals at all, the public would by and large protest and oppose them. Because they're not popular either. The only thing that held them together was trump and his populism and cult of personality. The GOP isn't particular policy wise. Because they don't do anything. Like literally, they're the anti government party (unless convenient for them). They run on "small government", they dont believe in policy any way. They want people to figure stuff out by themselves, as long as it fits within their predominantly white judeo christian worldview. Unless they can wave Trump around or someone like him, they just lose elections, unless the dems are in and people hate the dems for failing and refusing to do anything. 

Our system is a mess. This is why I end up voting for third parties. Maybe third parties suffer a MASSIVE electoral disadvantage due to the presence and popularity of the two parties, but I'm under the impression things will only improve unless the people stand up, say no, and vote for policies they like. At this point the dems are the timid and ineffectual lesser evil party, with the GOP being the big bad, but you know what, as we enter the second year of the biden presidency, I feel like very little has actually changed for the better. I knew I'd feel like this. because I knew how the Obama administration went. Keep in mind, my views radicalized into what they are now under not a republican president, but a democratic president. Because I knew the democrats couldn't accomplish any meaningful goals in their current state. But the GOP helped push me left too, mainly by pushing me out of their party due to their own insanity. 

Honestly, this is why I don't focus much on mainstream political issues. It's so boring, and so depressing, and hardly anything of real value happens. The dems pretend to push for watered down band aids, and then they fail to have enough voters to do anything, and then the GOP actively sabotages any attempt to reasonably govern, if they aren't trying to make things actively worse. The GOP is the worse party, but at this point, I feel like if the dems were really rearing to go and beat them, they would've done so. They would put more effort into it. They wouldn't have run hillary, and they wouldn't have run Biden. 

Andrew yang regularly says that he used to think the problem was that we needed new policies and a new direction, but now he thinks the problem is the politicians aren't listening to people at all. And they dont. They treat them like children. And given how low the bar is for education in this country, a lot of them are mentally like children in politics. As George Carlin once said, just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, but too dumb to actually understand how badly they're getting ####ed. 

It's really sad to see. 

Anyway, I'm just gonna say this, to any republicans reading this, DON'T vote republican. They aren't good for the country. I understand why you hate democrats to some extent, but the GOP isn't the solution. To dems...do better. You should be able to beat these guys even with them running on nothing. But it actually requires putting in the effort with governing. I know my standards are high. I have specific policy goals I want implemented, and I won't be happy until someone implements those specific goals. But seriously, do better. Even if you ran a Bernie like candidate with bernie like policies, we'd make some progress. THis centrist stuff doesnt work. You run on stuff not fundamentally changing to appeal to moderates, and then the moderates go and vote GOP anyway. It's a joke.

Discussing Alex Gourevitch's objections to UBI

 So, Alex Gourevitch, a leftist scholar who apparently writes for Jacobin, went on Karl Widerquist's program to serve as a critic to UBI. Because, obviously, it isn't fair for his class to only represent the positive side of UBI, he wants to address the negative side of UBI. And this guy is a critic. Now, I'm going to give this guy credit. I've dealt with a lot of quite frankly BAD arguments against UBI, including from the far left. And this guy IS a far leftist, to get that out there. He wants a form of democratic socialism in place of a UBI centered "human centered capitalism" as I would call it. The reason i give this guy credit is because he doesn't just quote leftist philosophy at me, going on about how lenin said those who dont work dont eat, or going on about jobs programs, blah blah blah. He actually is sympathetic to the ideas of UBI and indepentarianism. But, he doesn't think UBI is the best way to achieve these goals.

He addresses 2 major arguments in his address. What he calls the pragmatic argument against UBI and the utopian argument against UBI. The pragmatic argument being an argument of pragmatism, and the utopian argument being one of ideals.

To first address his pragmatic argument, he would argue that for an emancipatory UBI to have the public will, and the support of the people, you would have the support of a class conscious movement, and that you might as well just go for socialism. basically, he's arguing, if you have the public support for UBI, you have the public support for socialism, so you should just go for socialism. There is a bit of a value laden perspective here, implying socialism is BETTER. We can address his utopian argument either, but I think he's wrong on this.

First of all, when we talk pragmatism, there's multiple forms of pragmatism. He seems to be speaking specifically of political pragmatism. On that front, I have mixed views. On the one hand, I would agree with him, if anything, let me strengthen his arguments a bit. In our current political environment, democratic socialism would likely get support before a UBI would. And here's why. let's exclude the right, as the right is just bonkers and not open to either. But...UBI isnt very popular either on the left or the right. The right opposes it for all the normal reasons, giving people money is wrong, work is good, blah blah blah. The left...there's a weird uncanny valley UBI and my own ideology fall into that seems to turn off everyone. The centrists hate UBI because it's not pragmatic, and they want worthless policies that dont do anything. But then the left hates it because it's not left enough. I want to remind people of one simple fact. IN 2020, Bernie Sanders, a self described democratic socialist, was the runner up in the democratic primary. And it's been argued that he could've won if not for dem intervention. He has, conservatively, 1/3 of the democratic party support, and that number could be bumped up to 40-45% if he was actually given fair treatment among the dems. he might even WIN. Now, will everyone in that group want hardcore socialism? NO. Most of those guys will be fair weather socdems. But they would be comfortable enough with a self described socialist that he would win big time. Nationally, how would Bernie do in a general election? it's hard to say but I think he would have a fair shot to win. I would argue in 2016 he would overperform vs hillary, in 2020 he might underperform vs biden. That's my overall assessment. So...what about Andrew Yang? Well, look at what I wrote over the last year about the democrats. They're split into 3 groups. The moderates, the idpol people, the progressives (progressives being bernie friendly). Yang, the UBI oriented "human centered capitalist", is in NONE of these categories. In the 2020 primaries he got like 2% support. In the NYC race, he was in 4th place, at like 13% support. So let me just say, first of all, that from a purely political standpoint, we're looking at a democratic socialist winning BEFORE a UBI guy. I'm not sure that trend will hold in 2024. I think bernie is leaving a power vacuum I'm not sure anyone has the shoes to fill. Nina Turner has had trouble winning congressional races, and the best I've heard other than her for the dems is Marriane Williamson, who I would say is closer to Yang than to Bernie IMO. And Yang, the UBI he's going for his own party. So, it's possible socialism ISN"T supported.

At the same time, I think this argument is somewhat bogus. As I kind of implied above, even though a socialist can theoretically win before a UBI guy wins, socialism isn't gonna have broad support in the country at large. And honestly, just looking at what he says about business interests...uh....is an emancipatory UBI of say, $13k a year since that's what I advocate for, going to get as much resistance from the business classes as literally SIEZING THEIR BUSINESSES?! Probably not. Now, on the one hand, it goes the other way too. One thing this guy overlooks is most socialists are jobists. They have work ethic. They often believe everyone has a moral requirement and duty to work. And UBI is more comfortable among the anti workers. At the same time...again, it can go the other way. Yang arguably is more able to get his agenda past some business people than Bernie would. Yang can go on fox news and talk to tucker carlson about white opioid addicts in the mid west and the plight of the young white male who can't find a job. Now, are those right wing white populists anti work? No, but Yang has the credentials to go to those people and push a UBI, which would be emanicipatory, while going on about siezing the means of production would just get shot down. It's all about the messaging. Either way if I had to guess what businesses would hate more, it's the guy who would wanna socialize them, not the guy who takes 20% of their money. Now, to be fair, that leads to a misconception that alex has. He had some idea that businesses would pay for the entire UBI. Unless you do this in a roundabout VAT way which translates to "consumers fund the UBI", that aint gonna happen. UBI taxes tend to hit the population equally and are relatively flat when sustainable. This leads to them being deemed "regressive" by the "left". Will there be resistance to UBI? Sure, but not like there would be to actual socialism. 

This also ignores any kind of pragmatism other than political pragmatism. I quite frankly don't give a crap about political pragmatism. I dont let the overton window define me, when I talk pragmatism, I talk actual policy pragmatism. UBI is a much more simple and direct policy to implement than socialism is. UBI is a single policy, socialism would be hundreds of different bills doing different things. UBI has a simplicity and transparency that's unrivaled. Take just the socdem "socialism" Bernie pushes. He supports so much money for M4A. Then so much for free college. And so much for daycare. And so much for housing, etc. Now imagine actually transitioning our economy into a literal socialist economy. You would need to pass tons of bills establishing different agencies, and different bureaucracies, you would need to work out all fo the logistics. Unless you mean a coop version of socialism, which would be market socialism. And a huge reason im not big on market socialism is because it's NOT emancipatory. People would still be required to work, their paychecks would still be tied to institutions. It just replaces one oppressive regime for another. And I'd give Alex enough credit to know that, as his argumentation explicitly included emancipation from work. When you really sit down and look at what it would take for socialism to work, you would need to draw up a whole new system, from scratch. And that would require mountains more work and planning to accomplish properly than just giving people a UBI and letting the market decide would. So I actually don't agree that if we implemented a UBI, we would accomplish socialism, so you might as well accomplish socialism. He has this misunderstanding that just mobilizing people to a point of being able to change things is socialism. No, it's just a movement and that movement can accomplish many of things. Socialism itself, is far more complex, far more difficult to actually put into writing, and put into practice. It would require a much more radical restructuring of society, and it's unclear if the end result would be worth it. I know that those who have tried this before...didn't get results I'd be happy with. Again, unless you're talking market socialism, and market socialism is really just....capitalism 1.5. To be fair so is UBI based human centered capitalism, but in a different way. Market socialism wouldn't solve the coercion aspect of capitalism. It would be one of those on paper, according to some dude's theory, hey we're "liberated" now, but...am I really? Nope. I'm still tied to jobs, I'm still tied to institutions. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. So...to me, this argument falls flat on its face, and while I get what he's trying to say, I'm not convinced that it would be more practical...from a policy perspective. Socialism is far more radical in practice, and would be much more difficult to implement, and would require mountains more effort. While I could see a Bernie Sanders type "socialist" winning an election before I see Andrew Yang winning one given how the current demographics are, that just doesn't mean much to me. I mean, Bernie is just social democracy anyway. Actual socialism, as in nationalizing the economy, would get way more opposition in practice, and be way more difficult to implement in practice. 

Which brings us to the second argument, the utopian argument. In his second argument, he seems to address more logistical problems with UBI, but they seem to have to do with how do we decide what labor has to be done, and how do we ensure it does get done? And for me, this is just where this dude loses the plot. Look, dude, I'm a capitalist. And this is where MARKETS are useful tools. How do we decide what has to be done? We've already done this with coronavirus. We separated "essential labor" from nonessential labor. We shut all nonessential work down, and we let the essential work be done, albeit by the same coercive means. While in a capitalist economy with markets there would be no hard requirements determining what labor has to be done, that's the point. The point of capitalism is to have more freedom, and that involves more voluntary relations. if people want to work on passion projects, or operate businesses that don't have to exist, and it's voluntary to do that, because they have a UBI that they can live on and say no, but still choose to do the work, why not let them work? Capitalism would work the same way it's always worked. By supply and demand. And if nonessential businesses go out of business, or jack their rates up because they can't attract labor and need to raise prices in order to get labor to be done, then so be it. I don't believe if a business is nonessential and relies on coercion, that it should exist if it would go out of business without that coercion. Now, if ESSENTIAL businesses need labor to be done, and they're struggling, well, the way we do that is through UBI itself.

If we have a labor participation rate of 60% with no UBI, and adding a $20000 UBI reduces that rate to 40%, and we need, say, 50% of people working, then that UBI is too high and here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna have people taking their UBI to the store and buying food, say a box of pasta is $2 now. Okay, well, because they can't get workers to make pasta, and cant get workers to work in the shipping, and they cant get workers to work in the store, pasta might go up to like $3 a box. But that isn't good, that's inflationary. So that would mean to account for this, that next year the UBI would need to be raised to $30000 to get the same amount of goods. But, the higher UBI perpetuates the labor shortage, forcing businesses to raise the cost of pasta to $4.50. And so on and so forth. This is a wage price spiral, and the worst case scenario of a UBI. It would happen if the UBI is too high, and as such dsicourages work too much. Essentially, you have a product, cost of product goes up astronomical levels to account for increased labor costs, but that just causes more pressure on wages to keep people working, which raises prices further, and it's a feedback loop. If you have this happening, you probably made UBI too high. It wouldnt be bad if nonessential or luxury items did this, if anything low prices being subsidized by wage slavery and coercion is bad. But if this starts happening in essential economies that need to exist, this is bad. So what happens is that when pasta raises to $3 a box, and everything increases in price 50%, well, you cap the UBI at $20k. Ideally you wouldnt start as such a crazy high amount anyway, but generally speaking, it would mean $13,333 is a more stable amount. That's the amount of UBI we can give, before prices start spiralling out of control.

Now, you might say, some coercion in the economy still exists. Well, to make an analogy from John Bentley's "full unemployment" essay, I would say that I'd rather a partial implementation of my ideas with the expansion of them down the road, than abandoning those ideas. Basically, I support my ideas being implemented to the greatest extent possible. We have a certain amount of baseline work that NEEDS to be done. UBI would reduce peoples' willingness to labor the higher it is. We just set the UBI at or near the highest amount we can sustain. And over time, hopefully we can work on automating jobs or otherwise producing technology that would alleviate our needs. I honestly suspect that within 50 years, we could minimize our NEED for labor, if we structured society around that principle, in such a way that more people would want to work, than jobs would need to be done. And we'd probably be able to live well. Between separating essential and nonessential labor like we did via covid, and automating jobs over time, we could liberate most of humanity to the point that only those who work are those who genuinely want to. And that's all I care about. Liberating people, while maintaining the function of society. And we do this through the power of capitalism.

So when alex here seriously asks these questions, I kind of see what he's getting at, but he's doing his socialist thing again. You see, in a socialist economy, some power structure would determine what work should be done, and then they're inevitably, in absence of a UBI or market economy, ASSIGN people to it. This would be more coercive, and more stagnant. Keep in mind the big capitalist opposition to socialism in American lingo. What do we talk about? loss of liberty, central planning, stagnation and inefficiency and bureaucracy. Command economies. That's kind of where socialism once again falls flat on its face. It all sounds well and good, but ultimately, if you're gonna do away with the current system, you need to make a new system from scratch. And you're creating those issues where you have to figure them out. If I keep capitalism around, those answers are simple. They can be simplified down to basic supply and demand, and influencing factors like jobs needed and who is willing to work in that way. And I still deem incomplete freedom from a partial UBI to be a step toward real freedom, it may not be realized yet, but it's still...the least bad way to get people into those positions. if you dont use passive market means via wage slavery, and you need a coercive element, well....what are you gonna do...FORCE them? That's what socialists end up doing. They FORCE people to work. And because it isnt fair to force just SOME people to work, they force EVERYONE to work. So....they just reinvented the wheel....again. And we're no closer to emancipation. And this is why attempts at socialist economies don't liberate people, they don't free people, they end up just replacing one coercive, oppressing regime with another. 

That said, this utopian argument just comes off to me as this dude playing himself. He advocates for socialism, then he asks all of these questions about how this would get done...and honestly, this is what happens when you try to reinvent an entire economy from scratch. Markets work. I dont want to get rid of them. Do they work perfectly, in all situations? No. Do they work adequately in most situations? Yes. Is there a better way of doing things? For most things no. I can be sympathetic of government run healthcare, for example, or government run education. Because markets just produce severe market failures and those economies end up being extremely exploitative and inflationary. But...for most things...markets work. And the signals are already built in. If theres a shortage of something, the price goes up. If theres a surplus, it goes down. If not enough work is being done, goods and services will be scarce, and you get inflation. The way to solve the problem is to wait for the market to equalize and set the UBI at the equalization point. If you get inflation and no one works, you made the UBI too high. The ideal UBI is a UBI that liberates people as much as possible, without causing an inflationary spiral. This is why I advocate for a UBI near the federal poverty line. Between the additional 20% or so marginal tax rates (18.5% in my latest plan) and the UBI only being just above the poverty line, the odds that most people would stop working are small, based on previous research done. Higher amounts of UBI might cause more issues. 

That said, I'm gonna be honest. While this guy offered unique arguments against UBI that aren't common, and he seemed more sympathetic to indepentarian goals than most socialists would (most just completely ignore the issues with coercion completely, believing socialism in and of itself solves all inherent problems with the system and eliminates all objections to participation in said system), I'm not really convinced. First of all, I'm convinced actual socialism would gain far more resistance from the elites as seizing their businesses would be significantly more damaging to business interests than simply taxing 20% of their incomes and letting them demand higher wages. Second of all, socialism would require a full scale reworking of the economy that capitalism wouldn't, and this introduces logistical challenges, which could be solved simply by keeping "capitalism" around along with UBI. So no, socialism isn't better, I'd prefer UBI and human centered capitalism. I'm not super sympathetic toward socialism and you can probably see why here. And this ins't even getting into the fact that most socialists also arent sympathetic to indepentarian arguments. They arent anti work, they dont care if you're coerced, they deem participation to be a moral duty in society. They are just as high on that protestant work ethic garbage as most capitalists are. This particular guy is sympathetic, but still, when I work through his arguments, I can just see why socialism would fall flat on its face. It would require restructuring and reinventing an entire economy and that's going to lead to a lot greater control over the economy, which paves the way to authoritarianism. Even if 'democratic" on paper, either that democracy is gonna be lost to layers of bureaucracy to the point of meaninglessness, or it's gonna be tyranny by majority. 

For UBI, all we need is popular support to elect someone to pass one bill to give it to us, and that bill just fund and distribute it. We dont need to reinvent the entire wheel here.

Discussing Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg, and cancel culture

 So...we all know from previous statements that I'm a free speech absolutist. Unless something is so egregious it's literally illegal under our extremely lax first amendment oriented free speech system, I'm literally for all speak. And that includes the right to be wrong. And that said, I wanna discuss Joe Rogan and Whoopi Goldberg real quick.

First Joe Rogan. He's been controversial lately because he's been promoting ivermectin and other anti science nonsense on his channel. I think Rogan is a moron for doing this, as I strongly support and endorse taking vaccines and listening to medical experts on medical issues. But...he has a right to do this. Free speech means you have a right to be wrong. But...the left doesn't agree with that and believe wrong think must be punished at all costs, so people have been trying to pull their music from spotify in an attempt to get Joe Rogan deplatformed for spreading his nonsense. And I'm sorry, i think that's wrong. I don't support the idea of deplatforming people, even people as stupid as Joe Rogan. As I see it, we're all (mostly) adults in this country and an open discussion on things is necessary. I admit, a lot of people misuse their speech, sometimes in egregious ways, to spread nonsense. But the alternative to this is living in an authoritarian society where people who deem themselves to be arbiters of truth try to punish people for thinking wrong. I don't believe in that. If you wanna mock Joe Rogan, go for it. If you wanna not listen to him, then don't listen to him. But I don't agree with being petty and self righteous and trying to explicitly punish and remove him from the platform. 

Second, you got Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi expressed the perspective that the holocaust wasn't racist, presumably because it was white people killing white people, and got suspended from the view for it. I also disagree with this decision. Whoopi's take was idiotic, and clearly showed her own very obvious and very off base racial biases. But...again, her opinion is her opinion. We can criticize that, but I wouldn't want to remove them from their positions for saying something so stupid. 

Honestly, all this cancelling nonsense is bad. I don't agree with any of these statements, but people should have a right to say idiotic things. And while people will say that free speech doesn't extend to the private sector, you're right, but maybe it should. After all, just like government tyranny isnt the end all of tyranny with the jobs market, maybe private tyranny is real and exists in the private sector when it can leverage its power to sanction people for expressing wrong think. What good is free speech if you have no platform? And what good is freedom if you lose your livelihood for expressing wrong think? I understand theres gonna be some nuance there. Business interests who run propaganda networks might not want people expressing wrong think on their dime, as their employees. But at the same time, I think the left is being overly punishing and vindictive toward those who they don't like. And it's nonsense. I hate the idea of "canceling" people. It just comes off as a mob mentality and a violation of every principle of freedom that I hold. And sanctimoniously sanctioning Whoopi for one bad take seems done. If they're regularly making bad comments to the point they're losing viewers that's one thing, but let's be honest, this was a symbolic gesture to punish someone for wrong think on the holocaust. And while I will once again argue holocaust deniers are, in fact, idiotic and wrong, I will also point out that I believe people have to a right to say what they say, and shouldn't, in most situations, be punished for it. 

Again, to me the problem is these wannabe authoritarians like to just punish people for wrong think. They have a certain narrative they advocate for and anyone who doesn't toe that line gets actively punished. That's dangerous, and a threat to free speech in larger society. As far as Im concerned, you should be able to say what you want. If you act, or incite others to actions in a clear way as defined by law, that isn't protected speech in the first place, so being punished is fine. But merely expressing crap opinions shouldn't, by and large, be punishable. We need less thought police in society, and more freedom of expression. Even if people use that freedom for idiotic purposes.

Joe Biden being evil on student loans

 So....as we all know, Joe Biden has a failure on student loan debt. he has executive authority to do whatever he wants with it, and forgiveness has been floated in the past, but then it got bargained down to $50k and then to $10k, and then nothing. And now the Biden administration is apparently trying to block a 35 year old epileptic dude with no prospects of improvement from being able to get his loans forgiven. This is nothing new for Biden, he was one of the ones who made it impossible to get your loans forgiven in the first place. Honestly, it's BS. I never wanted Biden as president. You guys can see how I felt about Biden in 2019 and 2020. I NEVER wanted this guy. heck, I often promised never to vote for him if he got the nominee. Because I knew he had a history of centrism and being on the wrong side of history with stuff. And here he is again. Doing the wrong thing on the issue. 

Screw Joe Biden. Let this be a reminder to anyone who tries to push blue no matter who logic down your throats. Biden, as he enters his second year, has abandoned even the pretense of being progressive. He at least tried to keep appearances up the first year. But even then he was kind of weak sauce, and now he's just about facing on everything and running hard center. I mean the way he's governing now isn't much different than how Trump governed on the whole. Admittedly he's been road blocked whenever he did try to do nice things, but still, it's like the dude doesn't even try that hard. As I said, when obama faced malaise in 2014, he should've gotten in front of the country, used the bully pulpit, and argued for change. Biden has learned nothing from the Obama administration's failures. 

Everyone, remember this in 2022. Remember this in 2024. The democrats arent your friend. And they don't govern meaningfully different than the right these days. They're just slightly less insane and sociopathic about it. But even then they'll still do crappy things when they don't think anyone is looking. It's all window dressing around the edges as far as i'm concerned. Seriously. There's a reason I check out of mainstream politics so often. This is why. Our politics are a joke. 

Why work reform doesn't work

 So I thought I may have written an article like this before, but I can't find it, and it might've been a sub point of another article I wrote a long time ago, but I think it's worth noting. I've been criticizing reforming work for a while, and I want to succinctly explain why reforming work will never solve problems.

When you implement reforms to an institution like work, most of them come off as band aids. They do not solve the core relationship between employers and employees, which I see as involuntary since in our society most people are forced to work via propertylessness. The fact that regulations exists seems to imply that the people who made them understand that the relationship between employer and employee isn't necessarily completely voluntary, but the fact is, the regulations are only as good as they are written.

If you impose a minimum wage, you might raise the wages of someone who would otherwise make below a minimum wage, but your employer will still pay the least they can get away with. And minus the current labor shortage driving wages up, many jobs pay very close to the minimum wage. $8-10 an hour has been kind of the norm for much of the past decade. Competition might add $1-3 an hour extra, but as we can tell, they still pay very close to minimum wage.

If you have a job requiring overtime for over 40 hours a week, employers will work you for....40 hours a week. And of course exceptions exist. Managers often work long hours as they're exempt from FLSA. Salaried workers also bypass hourly requirements. And overtime rules might discourage some from working longer hours by force, but others will still make you. You can't say no to your employer if they're willing to pay you more. So if they say you gotta work more you still gotta work more or lose your job.

If you mandate giving full time workers healthcare, many will choose to do what many employers have done and cut many workers in low paying industries to part time. This means people have to work two jobs or more.

Unemployment exists, but only helps those who are let go for good reasons. people who talk back dont get it. People who quit dont get it. Only people let go get it. So people are incentivized to treat their bosses well and do everything they say. We like to act like its voluntary, but if you need that paycheck, it really isn't.

Any regulation might somewhat help labor relations, but it only helps them as much as it is legally enforced. Your employer will never give you an extra inch. Because they own you, and you are best not to forget it. Work reform helps, but it will never fix the core relationship between labor and employers. Not even socialism really fixes it for me, because socialism either means government employer, or I have a democratic vote among many and if I'm outvoted I still have no freedom (ignoring the fact that shadow hierarchies would continue to exist). Only liberating people via the right to say no and UBI is acceptable to me. I dont want more benevolent overlords, and while I certainly believe labor regulations exist, I dont expect them to solve the core issue between labor and capital. Let's face it, I'm still expected to labor for a boss for 40 hours a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, and if less it means more because I will be too poor to live on the job and need to work multiple jobs, and if more, it really shows how limited the regulations are. I'm still expected to follow their orders. I'm still a wage slave. I'm just being treated better. It's like them implementing restrictions on how to treat slaves. Sure maybe I can only be whipped so many times, but it doesn't solve the problem that is slavery. That's my core issue with "work reform." It doesnt actually give me freedom or autonomy over my life. It takes an oppressive institution, cleans it up a little, but still imposes it on me.