UBInterested

Recently “friendlies” were hosting UBI shills, stabbing us in the back and twisting the knife, so I had to write to defend MMT.

I am so bitter about this I cannot name names, because that would imply friendly banter. I have to attack the ideas. There is nothing friendly about UBI, the UBI is a direct frontal attack on the working class. I have to fight back for workers.

When I name names, like Jason Hickel, Steve Keen, or Michael Hudson, or Paul Krugman, or Richard Wolff, and have something against their ideas to say, I’m always doing it in a good faith friendly way. That’s because I trust (some of) these people. That is, I trust they are writing or speaking in good faith. Sometimes I see their ideas are born out of ignorance (that’s you Kruggers), and so results in straw-manning MMT, but I can usually see where the fault lies, and so will not shy from calling them out. I know full well I could be misinterpreting them, or might even have things wrong myself on the facts.

However, UBI and crypto-noncurrency are different stories. These are things that act directly against working class interests, and in the most insidious ways — since it is not hard to “sell” a good decent honest working class pleb on these ideas. Who doesn’t want to get-rich-quick (crypto) or have free money without earning it (UBI)? (Apart from me that is.)

Crypto is worse than gold, it is gold mentality without the gold, without a real resource. What is the resource crypto relies upon? It is not “Trust” as the crypto shills claim, since as Cory Doctorow has repeatedly warned, all electronic ledger schemes and the like ultimately depend upon a legal framework and trust of people, not encrypted software. People who think crypto has digitalised trust are delusional, and have not fully thought it all through.

If you want “proof-of-work” how about showing me some muffins you made for lunch, or some high energy electrons you produced to help fuel my GPU. Phucckin’ crypto-phuckers.

Try waving your distributed ledger at an Afghan warlord whose land your ledger says you own. (OK, that’s not a real example, but it makes the point.)

Your crypto does not give you a claim on anything because no one promises to redeem. If you can however find a bigger fool than you, you can take their state currency (or drugs, or whatever) off them and give them your bitcoin. But that was not a promise of redemption. The trust in the security of a digital ledger is not real trust in humanity.

But this article is not the anti-crypto one, that’ll come later.

Big f-ing Problem Up-Front

Hell yes people need money. We need state currency to pay tax liabilities and meet reasonable savings desires (short of gross hoarding, i.e., sales for making profit for the sake of profit and nothing else, no public interest just money fetish).

This is however not a case for UBI.

Only an idiot or neoliberal would consider UBI a necessity. Only a rentier would consider UBI both necessary and good. Neoliberals practically make UBI seem like a necessity. So I can understand in a neoliberal era people think UBI might be a good idea. The point is we should work to destroy neoliberalism, not to patch it up with a UBI. We should work to euthanise the rentiers, not feed them from the poisoned wellspring of UBI.

The Real Brainworms

However, this “patched-up neoliberalism” idea is still brainworms. Even under neoliberalism a UBI is a policy of lunatics. Why issue currency to people who already have enough to pay taxes and keep some savings? It makes no sense.

If I am straw-manning the UBI shills forgive me, but pray-tell what is a UBI if it is not universal? If it is not universal then stop calling it a UBI for godssake.

At worst governments who are neoliberal could issue a Basic Income Guarantee so people do not starve or suffer long term bank debt. From an MMT perspective (an anti-neoliberal political economy if ever there was one) a Basic Income Guarantee is practical, fits public purpose, and is wise and just. A UBI is all the opposite.

However, it is how a Basic Income Guarantee is implemented that matters, a BIG itself can be done poorly to similarly undermine real wealth as a UBI would. So even a BIG needs some considerate policy thought, not a welfare hand-out mindset.

The correct mindset for a Job Guarantee and Basic Income Guarantee is reciprocity, not welfare. All social welfare is produced and generated by the working class, not by government hand-outs.

UBI, in other words, is a giant “fuck you!” to workers. I am bitterly opposed to UBI.

Governments can always issue enough currency to meet our capacity to pay their imposed tax liabilities plus our reasonable savings desires. No UBI is necessary for this. Consider,

1. Anyone able to contribute for public local community purpose can be recompensed with a decent full living wage plus benefits. This is called reciprocity. It is righteous.
2. Any social good anyone does living off a UBI hand-out or wage subsidy should be recognized as a contribution to society meriting a decent living wage, not a social welfare pittance.
3. UBI is a claim on someone else’s labour — usually some poor worker in the global south — and for nothing in return. UBI is disgusting.
4. Pensions and social welfare payments are called “civilisation” and are not a UBI. They establish a type of BIG. But with full employment the BIG would be more substantial, because real resources would be backing the claims the welfare beneficiaries have rights, as member of society, to claim.

UBI is anti-civilisation and pro-individualism and greed. UBI is the sick mentality of, “I exist, therefore I have a right to claim the fruits of someone else’s labour while providing them nothing real in return.”

I am sure leftists who advocate a UBI simply know not what they do.

What About Taxing the Rich?

There is no need to use a UBI as an excuse to tax the rich. If we do not want people hoarding obscene amounts of state currency we should tax them because we do not want people hoarding obscene amounts of state currency.

Currency hoarding of the obscene variety distorts democracy, and we would not need any other excuse to tax obscene hoarders to the high hilt. They are not the job creators.

If you do run a UBI, the tax on the rich goes back to them as UBI + rents. There is no public purpose served by such policy, it is profoundly regressive and does nothing to generate real output people need today. If governments need to stimulate demand, they can always choose to raise the minimum wage, and preferably by implementing a Job Guarantee at a living wage floor.

It makes no sense to use a UBI for this purpose.

Any self-interested pursuit to u=skill or start a business, or other private enterprise justifies bank credit. But if it also fits with a public purpose then such skill training needs can be incorporated into a Job Guarantee scheme. A proper wage for proper work. If it fits public purpose it can be admitted into a Job Guarantee schedule, no further questions asked. No enterprising individual with greta ideas should have to fund their endeavour using a pittanc eof a UBI.

What About Human Freedom and Liberty?

A Job Guarantee gives workers the power to tell exploitative employers to piss off. In a monetary economy of any type (capitalist or socialist or a mix) there is hardly any greater proletarian power short of a dictatorship of the proletariat (who are not going to be running a UBI). But the Job Guarantee wage has to be a decent living inclusive wage. UBI undermines the capacity to afford workers a decent living wage, since a UBI adds all demand for zero supply.

UBI is pro-inflationary in a bad way.

A Job Guarantee is a counter-cyclical stabiliser, so is pro-inflationary only in a credit crunch end of a cycle, so is deflationary on the way up, inflationary on the way down, which is exactly what any wise person would recommend. A UBI on the other hand, to act counter-cyclically, needs policy decision adjustment, which is not automatic, so is not what we should want, since it’ll keep us hostage to the policy makers, who clearly do not always have public interest to heart.

UBI empowers fascism (I claim). Why? Because the hand-out is all up to the government to dispense, like a Cesar. UBI firstly props up neoliberalism, and we all know neoliberalism is the precursor to support for fascism. Yes, fascism always ends, and never ends well, but we do not have to go through fascism to get to socialism and/or liberal democracy without the austerity.

A Job Guarantee enshrined in Law is more freedom, since it is a claim the worker has on the state. The UBI is a claim a non-worker has on someone else’s labour. F-ing disgusting.

Besides all this, does a ubi support higher wages? No. It gives employers licence to lower wages. I fail to see anything progressive about a ubi at all, and the more I dig into the implications, the worse it gets. “Poverty” elimination, true, is about an absolute floor wage and social safety net, not a relative value story, but that’s not full democracy. That is because the reality of everyday life is one of relative poverty. How one stands in relation to the ownership class matters in a democracy, not just that you have enough bread to put on the table.

What About Justification for “tax the rich”?

Bullsh1t. Why would you want to condition taxing the rich on the payment of a UBI?

Tucco: “If you want to speak, speak, don’t talk.”

If you want to tax the rich, tax the rich, don’t posture.

This must go hand-in-hand with the point the JG buffer would be maybe 5% of the workforce tops, worst case, in a recession — and even then the JG makes sure a “recession” is typically pretty much only a mild business downturn. This has practically zero inflationary impact, mild inflation bias on the way down which is exactly what you’d want.

Imagine if UBI was indexed so it actually “worked” as intended – this would have true hyperinflationary potential, not that this would matter on a float, but it defeats the purpose and is politically unsustainable. The disingenuous douchebag argument “but ubi has worked in Alaska and Norway… etc” is crap — it is financed to be non-inflationary in those cases thanks to oil revenues. A ubi is always “paid for” on the back of workers or the environment, one way or another.

What About “No Data Supporting JG Efficacy”?

Another disingenuous argument is that “a ubi has worked in places, whereas we have no data a JG works.” I find this despicable. Firstly, UBI has not worked anywhere if you look at the macro picture. All gains be those in poverty thanks to a UBI have been born as costs to low paid workers elsewhere, usually in other countries.

Secondly, the Argentina Jefes y Jefas program, and the Indian Rural JG, were/are not full JG implementations. So is the UBI shill’s argument the JG would work worse if fully implements… in a non-corrupt country? Don’t make me laugh.

Youth activists in India during COVID wanted the government to expand the Rural JG program, they did not want a hand-out. Go ahead, fact-check me, please.

The survey information collected from the Jefas program was amazing support for JG over UBI. It benefited mostly rural women, and after the neoliberal chauvinists cancelled the program the women still wanted to work, they did not value the replacement welfare hand-out, it was almost an insult, and they preferred the work to the welfare. Again, fact-check me, please. (I could be wrong, write me if I am.)

from what I can tell a careful unbiased non-cherry picked examination of available data and survey opinion, favours a JG over a ubi both economically and politically. By “favours politically” I mean in the demographic that really matters, not the white liberal privileged condescending PMC, but the based working class.

Isn’t a Job Guarantee Fetishising “Work”?

F-off with that bullsh1t. Honest work for public service is righteous. There is no implied fetish.

Slave labour for a boss who is producing crap and can sell it using clever marketing or crony government subsidies, is the bullsh1t here. That’s also bullsh1t work. Yes, you should not fetishise bullsh1t work.

Work performed in the spirit of service to humanity is the opposite of this, it is good, righteous and should only be encouraged and rewarded. In a monetary economy claiming the work itself should be “its own reward” is bullsh1t.

I am thoroughly against “volunteerism”. If someone volunteers for public purpose work, pay them. If the charity cannot pay them the government Job Guarantee can. If they do not need the currency you can accept it back off them if they want to donate and be considered a volunteer proper. The rightful “Volunteer” is the one who volunteers to return their wages. But we have to pay them first, which is to definitely not fetishise the labour, it’s the opposite, it is recognition, not fetishisation.

UBI shills are the fetishists here. The fetish of the false promise of “freedom from work.”

If we get a boatload of machine automation there will still be work do to, the good thing about automation is this new work could be almost 100% pleasant and desirable, like solving difficult unsolved math problems, or producing amazing art work that cannot be automated. We can redefine the meaning of work, it can be service to humanity. That is a spiritual outlook, the opposite of a fetish.

Isn’t Social Welfare Already a UBI of Sorts?

“… so why not ramp up social welfare and run a UBI policy, huuh?”

That would be retarded.

Social welfare payments and pensions are not UBI. Pensions and social welfare are simply good policy if you want a civilised society where we take care of all. Especially we take care of those who lack the capacity to take care of themselves.

How do we do that best? Not with currency. We do it with work, to produce socially necessary output people first of all need to live a decent life, and second of all desire to consume sustainably. Paying people living wages, not slave wages, to do the sometimes sh1t but not bullsh1t work is how we do this.

The currency is on the back-end to ensure fair distribution, not to generate the output.

I know UBI is strong in Scandinavia, Alaska, Canada and South Africa. Please stay away from New Zealand, we don’t want you phuckers around here destroying our politics (TOP Party get lost you bastard over-educated liberal elite wankers).

Back to present day: we already have “adequate” social welfare programs for people who cannot or should not be working. The problem is not that the programs do not exist, the problem is they are not fairly provisioned. A UBI directly undermines the real economy capacity to provision these basic social services.

Not a good argument - but who supports UBI?

Apart from insane libertarians, the major supporters of UBI are dorks like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. (Also dorks like the late David Graeber whose other work I respect and admire. Good people can say stupid sh1t.) Actually I do not know they do support UBI, but people like them do. They know they need workers to buy their crap. They do not want to fairly pay their workers. So… UBI man! (Cock-suuuuckeeers.)

Good enough argument for me against UBI.

How is UBI Not a Trojan Horse for Capital?

I am not a social scientist, so can only speculate here, but it seems to me people who support UBI are people who are one or more of: (a) completely blind to class warfare, (b) ignorant of macroeconomics, (c) are well-to-do and have a legitimate concern for the poor, but who also lack a proper class analysis, (d) out-right neoliberals, or maybe non-authoritarian authoritarians.

Point (d)** concerns people who do not even realise it is a form of lauding it over the poor to offer them a UBI hand-out. I call it welfarism. It is gross. The spiritual principle is to give to people before they are in need of welfare or charity. UBI is, no mistake about it, charity form the state. But it is worse, since it goes to everyone, so is not charity. It looks like charity, but it is not charity.

There is no dignity in receiving charity. Charity is good. But the point is we should work so that it is not needed. The point of charitable organizations is to put themselves out of business.

A UBI cheque can only get you what workers are willing to be subjugated to produce. No one really wants to work. Everyone would rather play. But someone has to work.

When the State uses welfare policy as the anti-poverty lever, it is creating dependency. Social welfare needs to be a safety net, for correction of government policy mistakes, and the goal should be to eliminate those mistakes. When we eliminate the policy mistakes that create a need for welfare then we have greater human dignity and greater freedom from oppression. Having to depend upon charity s a form of oppression. That doesn’t mean giving out of charity or state welfare is a bad thing, it is not, it is a good thing when it is needed. The superior idea is to build a society where it is not needed. UBI does next to nothing to help with this.

What? Do you think people relying on a UBI are just going to rise up, self-organize,
and provide private social services themselves out of the goodness of their hearts?

The way we eliminate need for charity is to provide people with the goods and services they need to live a decent life. This is why on the progressive left side of politics we always favour the superior “universality” abstraction of Universal Basic Services. A nation should be able to democratically decide what they want as UBS, and if they can be resourced the state can always make the payments.

No UBI is needed.

If the state uses a UBI policy then all that happens without public Universal Basic Services is the private for-profit corporations offer the services instead, along with wasteful advertising and marketing crud, and concomitant real cots that are needless, and all for soaking up the government UBI handout.

This is what we mean by UBI being a Trojan Horse for the rentier class. They will gobble up your UBI by providing services the government is not providing, at much higher social and environmental real costs. Pretty darn crazy. It is not progressive politics.

Do not think for one minute the tax “pay for” the UBI will help lower inequality. It will not. All taxes on the upper class and owners of capital get passed through to consumers. The UBI leaves the working class no better off in relative terms than before when they were in debt to banksters.

The Subsidy for Capital

In a nice peaceful friendly society, a UBI might be considered “not a bad thing”. But it would still be unnecessary! for contrast, I would encourage people to look into the idea of Le Salaire a Vie. If you sort-of like UBI, I think the concept of a Le Salaire a Vie will completely cure you of your unconscious reactionary anti-worker tendencies.

But a Le Salaire a Viec can probably only take hold in an already peaceful socialist style of political economy.

While we live under a state sponsored capitalist system, the UBI becomes a subsidy for capital. It gives people the means to purchase the output of the capitalists.

UBI is extreme pro-capitalism.

I will give credit to anyone who admits this and loves UBI because they are a capitalist to their bones. Don’t be surprised if soi dissant “progressive” Elizabeth Warren starts supporting calls for a UBI welfarist policy.

What would Liz Warren truly be saying? Something to the effect:
“These poor workers who we unemployed are so retarded and useless we simply have nothing good for them to do, so we’ll give them their UBI. Then they can afford to buy our crap."

Think about who gains power if a BI is introduced? The ordinary person gains nominal purchasing power, but that can rapidly get deflated away if capital has monopoly pricing power, which is the case in many sectors, either through outright monopoly or oligopoly.

Worker: “Now I have my UBI, goody. But I also want some healthcare, at a reasonable price, so’s I can afford it, yo!”
Capitalist: “piss off you blood sucker, we gave you the UBI from our taxes. So doubly piss off yo leech! Get another job.”

How Does it Work Then in Alaska and Norway?

Where UBI seems to work (to reduce extreme poverty) it is always the case someone else is paying for it, and in real terms. Norway and Alaska sell oil. Someone else is paying for that, and those costs are passed on to workers somewhere else. There is also the environmental cost incurred, currently unaccounted for, and it is a significant real cost. That’s the sort of cost that truly is going to be a burden for our grandchildren.

If I were a decently paid worker in Alaska or Norway I would refuse to accept the UBI on principle. I imagine you would think that to be pretty extreme. So also imagine the spiritual violence of the psychological hypocrisy burden were I living in a UBI nation without a decent wage?

We also know the Andrew Yang version of UBI is a “tax on the rich pay-for” which is an utter chimera. Rich people already have abundant savings. They do not like getting taxed, so will seek all means necessary to reduce their tax burden, which means the real cost is always passed off onto the poor, ultimately. Even if the tax pay-for reduced private wealth, that does not limit the power of the rich. They still will have savings, so will still have leverage power.

This whole meme of the “good rich” saying, “Please tax me! Please!” is sad and hilarious at the same time.

If they were serious they’d just give away all their spare cash. Why wait for the tax man to do it?

Future Prospects

If you are one of those who currently support UBI and are ignorant of MMT, fair enough, but please go educate yourself. If you still support UBI do not thank me later for warning you about the ills of UBI. Just your thinking alone makes me ill and I want nothing to do with you, let alone your actual policy implementation. I do not want or need your thanks. I’d rather you think for yourself and work it out, without a bitter person like me to tell you not to sh1t all over the working class.

If humanity sorts itself out more peacefully and in unity then we will see a small Job guarantee program in every country and expanded public sector employment for skilled workers. I do have some optimism about this, because not everyone on this planet is batshit stupid. And even UBI shills are not necessarily greedy selfish people, they’re just ignorant and lazy in their thinking. I can tolerate a bit of laziness. Especially the mathematical, engineering, and programming kind, which work their butts off today to a ridiculous degree just to avoid harder work tomorrow, thus tomorrow freeing up time to do more engineering they’d otherwise not have time to do. And why? Not for a pay check, but because it is cool and has a pay check.