Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
I like how the article pointed out the biggest economic problem I see in post-industrial society - instead of almost everyone being a small business owner, we have huge corporations reaping massive profits, and poor replaceable corporate drones barely making ends meet.<p>That said, I completely disagree with the proposed solution of UBI and here&#x27;s why. We humans have a rather nasty bug in our firmware: when we do not <i>have</i> to work, we turn tribal. We form cliques and our meaning of life becomes to bite, or at least to bark at the clique on the other side of the fence.<p>If you want some evidence, look at the correlation between cold climate (forcing people to do serious agriculture) and economic development in many countries. I also suspect that the recent spike of divisiveness and outrage in our society has something to do with people having more free time from lost jobs, and not desperately trying to learn a new marketable skill, because of the COVID-19 support.<p>Mind you, I&#x27;m not saying that COVID relief is bad, but I seriously suspect that the recent unrest is a preview of what the society would turn into if we eliminated the need for people to work.<p>I wish we could instead figure out a system for taxing scale or subordination levels. So that having a couple of owner-operated grocery stores in every neighborhood would become a viable alternative to centrally managed Walmart with armies of corporate zombies miserable at their jobs. Of course, it would reduce the overall efficiency, but I would happily pay an extra dollar to live in a society where people are putting their energy into producing objects of value and making others happy, than see endless infighting about who deserves that extra chunk off someone else&#x27;s table more.