
If labor is being replaced by capital, then the revenue should come mostly from… - joeyespo
https://medium.com/@2noame/if-labor-is-being-replaced-by-capital-which-it-is-then-the-revenue-should-come-mostly-from-12fc4985c90#.jspb3knqq
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wahern
A couple of years ago I was very much in favor of a universal basic income
(UBI). But as support in the tech community grew, I became more skeptical of
the idea. The election of Donald Trump has really solidified my opinion that
it's a non-starter.

Lots of engineers, including myself, love the idea of a UBI. Many of us spend
much of our free time tinkering and learning. And that time spent often
directly translates into the improved marketability of our labor skills. For
people out of work, what could be better than having enough income coming to
support yourself while you learn new skills, pursue new business
opportunities, or volunteer?

The thing is, software engineers are a self-selected group of individuals,
generally much more self-motivated than most any other group in the country.
This is especially true of American engineers, and of many of those who find
themselves in America.

But most Americans are not that self-motivated. Worse, most middle-aged
Americans are downright hostile to the idea of continuing education. (Even
many software engineers are still hostile to formal education.) The echoes of
the well-paying company job from the 1950s still reverberate today, and it's
fubar'd most Americans' expectations. They expect to be able to find a well-
paying job around the corner; without having to change their interests;
without having to challenge themselves intellectually; and without having
their self-esteem challenged by the inevitable failures encountered when you
don't have the crutch of taking orders from someone else.

I don't think this is going to change anytime. Things are slowly changing, but
not in the way we expected. I think there was a paper that came out recently
that said younger people are less anxious about finding work than previous
generations at their age, but mostly because they're more content playing
video games. So, at best, a UBI will simply enable a more passive labor pool
less reactionary and prone to voting for a Donald Trump. At worse we continue
down the road of intensely bitter political warfare, with each party jockeying
to capture the elusive "give me the same job my grandpa had" voter.

Also, engineers (including myself) probably have some pretty rose-colored
glasses in how we view ourselves. We're probably not as self-motivated as we
think we are. The differences are probably marginal at best, amplified by the
tremendous growth of the past 20 years which, historically speaking, we
shouldn't expect to continue indefinitely.

~~~
bbctol
You can also view this more charitably: I think people advocating for UBI far
away from the workers it would affect don't realize how patronizing and
aggressive it is. If somebody has been working a job for thirty years, a
difficult, skilled job that people depend on, and is then suddenly told
"here's your allowance, now study hard" by someone who was lucky enough to get
their studying out of the way when they were a kid, it's not just "hurting
self-esteem," it's directly destroying their source of dignity. Moreover,
those in power control the companies that they can spend their basic income
at, and the elite institutions they'll need to suck up to if they want to
enter that world: the income enables survival, but there's no real power
there. If you go to "middle America," you'll find an awful lot of people
willing and happy to find new jobs that require "changing their interests" and
"challenging themselves intellectually," but face constant setbacks not just
financially but from distant organizations that don't see their potential.
People don't want the same job their grandpa had, they want a _job_ \--not a
couple dollars to keep them alive and powerless.

~~~
wahern

      "it's directly destroying their source of dignity."
    

I understand that. Much of family is in that boat, and I understand their
perspective. I grew up poor (homeless on a couple of occasions). I started
working 20 hours a week at the age 14 washing dishes and cooking, and have
always held a steady job, often to my own detriment (should have spent more
time studying).

I understand that people in immobile economic situations struggle to maintain
a sense of dignity and autonomy. But life will destroy your sense of dignity
when you put yourself out there. Ask anyone who completed law school, as I
did. Success and humiliation often go hand-in-hand. Poor people don't
understand that well enough.

So I understand and appreciate the argument about dignity. But if my treatment
of that argument seems less than sympathetic, it's because I've learned that
people _should_ learn to disentangle their sense of personal dignity from
their economic circumstance and social status. Appealing to their culturally-
informed sense of dignity is the same excuse Islamic terrorists use to excuse
their heinous acts.

At the same time, I know that that sense is real (however "wrong" it may be),
and that it substantially effects the viability of UBI, just like it does
peace in the Middle East. And there are similar issues that go unaddressed by
UBI, such as the necessity to channel people into constructive activities.
Bare economic necessity already does that, and it's not clear how that could
be replaced. We don't want armies of citizen sleuths spending their idle time
shooting up imaginary pizza parlor child pornography fronts.

