The problem with speaking of UBI as a concept is that it's really easy to forget that there are costs as well as benefits, and the cost is enormous. The brick wall is between the people talking about all the benefits and the people talking about all the costs. Actual numbers matter a lot. If it is as I say and UBI will be the largest government program period and almost as large as all other government programs put together, then many of the discussions are nonsensical, such as discussion of whether the administrative costs of a small scale means tested welfare program going away would support the cost of a society-wide benefit.
Remember that this is at its core a discussion about actual implementation details, which is why it's referring to research. I've been talking about the big problems with the experiments based on the real facts about how UBI would need to be implemented.
I do understand you aren't necessarily advocating for UBI, but that doesn't change the fundamental problems with the concept. It's adherents are using studies that don't take into account the overwhelming damage the largest social program in world history would create. They just hand free money that came from magic to people and see if their lives get better. As I said, the other side of the equation is the massive harm to working people who have to pay for it, and the broader economy as a whole caused by knock-on effects.
Edit:
I'm just thinking of it, imagine if someone goes "if poor people are hungry they should just buy a farm!" -- and they produce all kinds of studies showing that owning a farm eliminates food insecurity for the owners. It's great that owning a farm is so great, but where did the money to buy this farm come from? I'm sure a lot of poor people would love owning a farm but it just isn't in the cards because it's not something they could afford to do.
Remember that this is at its core a discussion about actual implementation details, which is why it's referring to research. I've been talking about the big problems with the experiments based on the real facts about how UBI would need to be implemented.
I do understand you aren't necessarily advocating for UBI, but that doesn't change the fundamental problems with the concept. It's adherents are using studies that don't take into account the overwhelming damage the largest social program in world history would create. They just hand free money that came from magic to people and see if their lives get better. As I said, the other side of the equation is the massive harm to working people who have to pay for it, and the broader economy as a whole caused by knock-on effects.
Edit:
I'm just thinking of it, imagine if someone goes "if poor people are hungry they should just buy a farm!" -- and they produce all kinds of studies showing that owning a farm eliminates food insecurity for the owners. It's great that owning a farm is so great, but where did the money to buy this farm come from? I'm sure a lot of poor people would love owning a farm but it just isn't in the cards because it's not something they could afford to do.
There are 45 million canadians, I'm picking 30 million Canadians as the Canadian citizens over the age of 18 which would make them eligible for UBI -- it isn't likely to be given to children or non-citizens, so there would be an eligibility critera. From that point it's an extremely simple calculation, 30 million times 12,000 dollars equals about 360 billion dollars. Since that's almost as much as total federal outlays in 2023, you'd need to effectively double federal taxes to match, and I'd expect that would double the top marginal rate assuming incorrectly that the same amount of money comes in.
If we give $12,000 to each person each year, that's what it would cost, disregarding administration costs.
Presently, even under the massive taxation up here, most individuals don't pay $12,000 in income tax. Only those making 60,000 or more pay at least that much(with much more taxes elsewhere including sales tax, local tax, sin taxes and the list goes on), so it would effectively mean a small minority of taxpayers would be on the hook for paying for everything. That would put a disproportionate burden on a small number of earners such as those trying to support a family on one income by working a dangerous, dirty, or uncomfortable job. Lots of guys in the oil sands working 6 weeks of 12 hour days would see their wages hit hard. They aren't up there for the love of oil, they're up there to make money and if you jack up taxes like you'd have to on them the companies won't be able to pay enough money to keep them at work because so much is being sucked away.
Under CPP (Canada's version of social security), someone could be eligible for up to 15,672 per year, but only 3% actually get that amount. The actual amount you get is proportional to the amount you paid in, so some people will make the full amount but many people will make nearly nothing. These limitations are why CPP contributions are 5.25% on income below $60,000 and yet according to the program administrators CPP is solvent for the next 75 years. The average CPP recipient gets about $840/mo. People can start to receive CPP at age 60 for a large penalty(36% reduction in monthly payments), or 65 for the base amount, or 70 for a slight bonus. The administration of this may cost a bit more money per capita, but nowhere near as much as opening the spigots to millions of additional recipients. The numbers simply don't add up. Moreover, you'd have to politically get people to give up a program they "paid into" all their lives, and that'll be difficult. As well, programs like old age security are going to be similarly difficult to get rid of since lots of people over 70 rely on it for a chunk of their living expenses.
If we give $12,000 to each person each year, that's what it would cost, disregarding administration costs.
Presently, even under the massive taxation up here, most individuals don't pay $12,000 in income tax. Only those making 60,000 or more pay at least that much(with much more taxes elsewhere including sales tax, local tax, sin taxes and the list goes on), so it would effectively mean a small minority of taxpayers would be on the hook for paying for everything. That would put a disproportionate burden on a small number of earners such as those trying to support a family on one income by working a dangerous, dirty, or uncomfortable job. Lots of guys in the oil sands working 6 weeks of 12 hour days would see their wages hit hard. They aren't up there for the love of oil, they're up there to make money and if you jack up taxes like you'd have to on them the companies won't be able to pay enough money to keep them at work because so much is being sucked away.
Under CPP (Canada's version of social security), someone could be eligible for up to 15,672 per year, but only 3% actually get that amount. The actual amount you get is proportional to the amount you paid in, so some people will make the full amount but many people will make nearly nothing. These limitations are why CPP contributions are 5.25% on income below $60,000 and yet according to the program administrators CPP is solvent for the next 75 years. The average CPP recipient gets about $840/mo. People can start to receive CPP at age 60 for a large penalty(36% reduction in monthly payments), or 65 for the base amount, or 70 for a slight bonus. The administration of this may cost a bit more money per capita, but nowhere near as much as opening the spigots to millions of additional recipients. The numbers simply don't add up. Moreover, you'd have to politically get people to give up a program they "paid into" all their lives, and that'll be difficult. As well, programs like old age security are going to be similarly difficult to get rid of since lots of people over 70 rely on it for a chunk of their living expenses.
Up where I live, something like 45% of of each dollar I earn already goes to government. With UBI, I expect that number would reach closer to 90%. I'd lose tens of thousands of dollars for ten thousand dollars in benefits.
Implement UBI, and there will be no livable wage. If they implement it here, my choices will be to flee the country and renounce my citizenship, or die in destitution with my entire family. I won't be able to afford to work. It will mean that the government has effectively confiscated everything I own because for example if I had 100,000 in retirement savings I'd only get 10,000 after tax.
I don't think in your calculation you realized just how bad the world looks with UBI.
The entire Canadian federal budget in 2023 was about $500 billion dollars and that's a number putting the country deeply into debt. Canada has 45 million people. If we assume only 30 million are eligible for UBI, we're looking at 360 billion dollars. There is no cheat code here, the money has to come from working people. The only way to do it would be to make that 45% more like 75% (I'll tell you right now I'd have to quit my job because I couldn't afford to keep it), but that confiscatory level of taxation would definitely drive down productivity so for anyone dumb enough to keep working it would likely be much much higher.
Implement UBI, and there will be no livable wage. If they implement it here, my choices will be to flee the country and renounce my citizenship, or die in destitution with my entire family. I won't be able to afford to work. It will mean that the government has effectively confiscated everything I own because for example if I had 100,000 in retirement savings I'd only get 10,000 after tax.
I don't think in your calculation you realized just how bad the world looks with UBI.
The entire Canadian federal budget in 2023 was about $500 billion dollars and that's a number putting the country deeply into debt. Canada has 45 million people. If we assume only 30 million are eligible for UBI, we're looking at 360 billion dollars. There is no cheat code here, the money has to come from working people. The only way to do it would be to make that 45% more like 75% (I'll tell you right now I'd have to quit my job because I couldn't afford to keep it), but that confiscatory level of taxation would definitely drive down productivity so for anyone dumb enough to keep working it would likely be much much higher.
Equilibrium doesn't mean you won't see stratification. Imagine a container with water, crude oil, and kerosene. If you shake it up, it mixes up, but it finds an equilibrium whereupon the kerosene is on top, the crude oil is in the middle, and the water is on the bottom. This occurred because gravity exerts the greatest force on the water, a lesser force on the crude oil, and the least amount of force on the kerosene, and so the crude oil naturally floats on the water, and the kerosene naturally floats on the crude oil. In equilibrium, and perfectly stratified.
The taxes required to maintain universal basic income are one force of gravity that will pull everyone down, but of course the poor won't pay tax, and even if the ultra-rich do pay tax, who cares? It goes to UBI so the money ends up right back in their pockets anyway. Meanwhile the working class and middle class fully feel the pull of that gravity. A second force of gravity will be the effect on asset prices, since many people will (like they did during COVID) take their free money and throw it into the markets. It's important to realize that if you implement UBI you can't get blood from a stone and it's likely that you will pull more money from the middle class workers than you give them because the money needs to come from somewhere and the middle class is where all the money is.
Arguably, we're in such a situation right now. The west is in a time with a fairly poor Gini coefficient, and some of the worst social mobility ever. The rich stay rich, the middle class might stay middle class (but many are not), and the poor stay poor. That's in spite of (but really because of) the government being 50% of GDP. Meanwhile housing, food, energy becomes unaffordable for anyone and everyone's quality of life is suffering.
To propose a sort of welfare program for citizens is to forget history. We had examples of societies that had lots of immigrants and then the state made citizenship a means to have the means to survive in the Greeks and the Romans. In both civilizations, there were many slaves imported to do work without pay, and as a result there was no opportunities for the working and middle classes, so as a result there were powerful social programs implemented. This whole scheme ultimately ended with those civilizations ending. It didn't help because money isn't wealth. You want your best and brightest in the working and middle class trying their best because they're going to come up with new and better ways of doing things and better ways of building wealth in terms of the stuff we need. Otherwise you end up slowly getting bogged down in a quagmire of the increasing effort needed to maintain the status quo while the wealth slowly leaks away into nothing or aggregates in the super powerful and wealthy.
The taxes required to maintain universal basic income are one force of gravity that will pull everyone down, but of course the poor won't pay tax, and even if the ultra-rich do pay tax, who cares? It goes to UBI so the money ends up right back in their pockets anyway. Meanwhile the working class and middle class fully feel the pull of that gravity. A second force of gravity will be the effect on asset prices, since many people will (like they did during COVID) take their free money and throw it into the markets. It's important to realize that if you implement UBI you can't get blood from a stone and it's likely that you will pull more money from the middle class workers than you give them because the money needs to come from somewhere and the middle class is where all the money is.
Arguably, we're in such a situation right now. The west is in a time with a fairly poor Gini coefficient, and some of the worst social mobility ever. The rich stay rich, the middle class might stay middle class (but many are not), and the poor stay poor. That's in spite of (but really because of) the government being 50% of GDP. Meanwhile housing, food, energy becomes unaffordable for anyone and everyone's quality of life is suffering.
To propose a sort of welfare program for citizens is to forget history. We had examples of societies that had lots of immigrants and then the state made citizenship a means to have the means to survive in the Greeks and the Romans. In both civilizations, there were many slaves imported to do work without pay, and as a result there was no opportunities for the working and middle classes, so as a result there were powerful social programs implemented. This whole scheme ultimately ended with those civilizations ending. It didn't help because money isn't wealth. You want your best and brightest in the working and middle class trying their best because they're going to come up with new and better ways of doing things and better ways of building wealth in terms of the stuff we need. Otherwise you end up slowly getting bogged down in a quagmire of the increasing effort needed to maintain the status quo while the wealth slowly leaks away into nothing or aggregates in the super powerful and wealthy.
Zelensky suspends debt repayments to foreign creditors as of Aug 1. I guess we'll see what ramifications come of this, but I can't imagine it'll be without consequences.
Family court really is the saddest place in the universe. It seems that every case is another tragedy unfolding, since you don't tend to need courts when things are going well or if things break amicably.
And going up against a pair of pro se litigants can't help either. Some do a fantastic job of representing themselves, but I can imagine a lot of what's going on is theatrics that a pair of real lawyers would cut through relatively quickly...
And going up against a pair of pro se litigants can't help either. Some do a fantastic job of representing themselves, but I can imagine a lot of what's going on is theatrics that a pair of real lawyers would cut through relatively quickly...
One problem with all these big city politicians is they never lived in nature, just their little curated spaces.
They don't realize that a lot of us are guests in nature instead of living in spaces that have been clear cut and paved over, and stuff like forest fires isn't a change, it's what forests do. It's part of the lifecycle of a forest, certain seeds won't even open unless there's a fire, showing that it's something so expected by nature that trees built entire strategies as species around forest fires meaning it must have been pretty constant forever.
When you're a guest in nature instead of clear cutting everything and leaving a little curated nature space with a permit tied to each tree like in Ottawa, you have to plan for certain eventualities. Eventually if you're not careful you'll get wild animals that can and will kill you sniffing around that threaten human settlements. If you're not careful you're going to get floods that threaten human settlements. If you're not careful you're going to get forest fires that threaten human settlements. When you're a guest in nature these are things you have to worry about because forces of nature don't care about your ideology.
But someone who has lived through a forest fire can tell you what happens next: You get to watch ecosystems thrive and grow. First you see ferns and grasses start to take root, then the fast growing deciduous trees start to grow and you go "Oh, I guess the leafy trees are going to take over" but after a few years you can see the slower growing coniferous trees starting to outcompete them because they grow year round.
But that's nature, and people who live in places without real nature don't understand it has always been dangerous and something human beings need to manage or face consequences like what happened in Jasper.
They don't realize that a lot of us are guests in nature instead of living in spaces that have been clear cut and paved over, and stuff like forest fires isn't a change, it's what forests do. It's part of the lifecycle of a forest, certain seeds won't even open unless there's a fire, showing that it's something so expected by nature that trees built entire strategies as species around forest fires meaning it must have been pretty constant forever.
When you're a guest in nature instead of clear cutting everything and leaving a little curated nature space with a permit tied to each tree like in Ottawa, you have to plan for certain eventualities. Eventually if you're not careful you'll get wild animals that can and will kill you sniffing around that threaten human settlements. If you're not careful you're going to get floods that threaten human settlements. If you're not careful you're going to get forest fires that threaten human settlements. When you're a guest in nature these are things you have to worry about because forces of nature don't care about your ideology.
But someone who has lived through a forest fire can tell you what happens next: You get to watch ecosystems thrive and grow. First you see ferns and grasses start to take root, then the fast growing deciduous trees start to grow and you go "Oh, I guess the leafy trees are going to take over" but after a few years you can see the slower growing coniferous trees starting to outcompete them because they grow year round.
But that's nature, and people who live in places without real nature don't understand it has always been dangerous and something human beings need to manage or face consequences like what happened in Jasper.
(I made a mistake, not searx, that's just a search aggregator. YaCy. That's an actual peer to peer open source search engine. I host yacy but it's just one of the engines accessible to my searx instance because searx is a really nice thing to use)
Everyone should really try to set up a searx instance on their machines. There's only a few hundred users right now. If enough decent folks started running it and scraped a little piece of the Internet they care about (you can even set it up as a proxy server to scrape any site you've been to) then we'd have a search platform that, while imperfect, would at least actually have all the sites places like Google refuses to show.
In a recent effortpost I analyzed the socialist nature of German national socialism, Italian Fascism, and Marxism. In today's language we could consider them to be respectively racial socialism, national socialism (the term national that the Germans used refers to an ethnostate while today we consider a nation something more like a land and it's government) or state socialism to avoid confusion with German national socialism, and class socialism.
Both Mussolini and Hitler cite Marx in their ideology. Mussolini was a member of the socialist party prior to his creation of the Fascist party, and is named after 3 different socialists. Hitler may have opposed Marxism and Bolshevism, but many of his writings and speeches credit Marx explicitly in the creation of National Socialism. His intention to exterminate the Jews was borne of the same ideological framework that had the Soviets exterminating the Kulaks. Engels published an article advocating for the genocide of Hungarians as not appropriate for inclusion into the dictatorship of the proletariat which also helped justify the German genocide of Jews. Although Hitler rejected class socialism, he often described how his ideology was socialism perfected, without the flaws of Marx. Later, Ludwig von Mises pointed out that German national socialism implemented 8 of the 10 points of socialism laid out by Marx and Engels.
Fascism makes sense as state socialism, a left wing continuation of the enlightenment project intended to be the next step after feudalism and capitalism. This can be understood easily because neither racial fascism nor state fascism intend to restore the monarchy or the nobility, and instead to collectivize the nation under the racial folk or the nation-state respectively.
This all continues to make sense in the framework I've laid out, of "racial socialism, state socialism, and class socialism". They all implement socialism, but in different ways that aren't compatible with one another. As a result, they will all ultimately clash with each other (and even fascists and german national socialists clashed over their ideologies despite being allies)
Some people think fascism and national socialism are right wing because they're authoritarian, nationalist, racist, and seek to preserve existing hierarchies, which all can be quickly refuted.
You can also see the whispers of angry Marxist in saying "it's authoritarian so it's right wing" well does that mean every communist state ever is right wing? It doesn't seem a legitimate analysis to assume something is right wing solely because it is authoritarian. Rospierre's reign of terror was undoubtedly authoritarian but by the standards of the day extremely left wing.
Nationalism also seems like something you can't really peg on the right wing specifically. Were there no Soviet patriots? Considering Stalin's one nation policy that seems unlikely.
Racism is a non-starter. Marx himself was highly documented as deeply anti-Semitic despite being an ethnic Jew himself, and shockingly racist even for his time In Marx's time, there was little distinction between the capitalist and the Jew, and in his essay "On the Jewish Question", he writes "What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money". Many socialist regimes implemented state racism such as the Russians cracking down on Jews or the CCP participating in the Uigur genocide.
As for maintaining or restoring old hierarchies, that's also obviously wrong. Both Germany and Italy had an existing hierarchy of nobility prior to the takeover by fascism or German national socialism, and those ideologies sought to reconstruct society in its own novel image, a hallmark of socialism in the 20th century. One might consider it right wing that there were any hierarchies at all, but by that measure marxist and boshevik socialists were also right wing since they all ended up building new hierarchies in place of the old.
This understanding of what marxism, fascism, and german national socialism is important because today everything is claimed to be nazi or fascist if the speaker doesn't like it, but we need a real framework for what is and is not fascist. Simply saying "I don't like that" does not make something fascist or national socialist, it needs to fit within the frameworks of racial socialism or state socialism. We can define violence against fascism as violence against state socialism.
So back to the topic at hand, would I agree that violence is justified to fight such a thing? Well, that's tough to say. It's easy to say about Italian fascism since my grandfather did fight them and justly so. On the other hand, Spanish fascism existed well into the 1970s and only ended because the dictator died and his heir just happened to give up power to create a liberal democracy. And in yet another point of view, the left has created the postmodern bureaucratic state and largely staffed it, creating the current situation where 120 years ago the government made up 10% of GDP but today makes up 50%, and the so-called free market that remains is overwhelmingly regulated so much that it's ultimately the state in control. Outside the context of world war 2, I don't think I'd be willing to use violence regardless of how much I disagree with it. The government won't stop doing this simply because I physically attack it. In fact, it's likely to make things worse. We have countless examples of such, including situations like the Reichstag fire which justified state crackdowns.
Political violence by be cathartic, but often it's ineffective, or even horrific. The French Revolution may have killed off many from the aristocracy, but the reign of terror turned into a crime against humanity, a purge of anyone remotely dissenting until the crowd finally turned and ended the reign of terror by purging those tasked with purges. Violent revolutions in the Soviet Union and China resulted in mass death and further tragedy. By contrast, a lot of good things have come from people winning the argument relatively peacefully Europe's relative democracy didn't come about through revolution, but by convincing the royal families to give up power over time. The world slave trade ended not because of a particular act of violent revolution, but because anti-slavery won the moral argument.
With respect to current movements that widely use violence allegedly in pursuit of attacking fascism, I don't see "antifa" burning down FDA offices or central bank buildings or department of education buildings or welfare offices. So why don't they attack these elements of state socialism if they oppose fascism? In my opinion it's because they're lying. Opposition to fascism is a facade being used for good old fashioned thuggery.
Who do we attack? Anyone we don't like! If you think killing a baby in the womb is an unjustifiable violation of that baby's human rights and that shouldn't be allowed, then we don't like you and we'll attack! If you think local law enforcement should arrest people who have committed actual crimes that violated other people's rights, then we don't like you and we'll attack! If you want to vote for someone who wants to reduce state interference in the economy, we hate you and we'll attack!
Other than the fact that nobody wants to piss off violent terrorists, nobody believes that the violence is remotely in the name of opposing fascism. Often those antifa folks seem to be fighting in pursuit of more state socialism rather than less. They aren't fighting for liberty or smaller government, they're supporting and supported by the state, and part of the state that wants to encompass everything in our lives.
Both Mussolini and Hitler cite Marx in their ideology. Mussolini was a member of the socialist party prior to his creation of the Fascist party, and is named after 3 different socialists. Hitler may have opposed Marxism and Bolshevism, but many of his writings and speeches credit Marx explicitly in the creation of National Socialism. His intention to exterminate the Jews was borne of the same ideological framework that had the Soviets exterminating the Kulaks. Engels published an article advocating for the genocide of Hungarians as not appropriate for inclusion into the dictatorship of the proletariat which also helped justify the German genocide of Jews. Although Hitler rejected class socialism, he often described how his ideology was socialism perfected, without the flaws of Marx. Later, Ludwig von Mises pointed out that German national socialism implemented 8 of the 10 points of socialism laid out by Marx and Engels.
Fascism makes sense as state socialism, a left wing continuation of the enlightenment project intended to be the next step after feudalism and capitalism. This can be understood easily because neither racial fascism nor state fascism intend to restore the monarchy or the nobility, and instead to collectivize the nation under the racial folk or the nation-state respectively.
This all continues to make sense in the framework I've laid out, of "racial socialism, state socialism, and class socialism". They all implement socialism, but in different ways that aren't compatible with one another. As a result, they will all ultimately clash with each other (and even fascists and german national socialists clashed over their ideologies despite being allies)
Some people think fascism and national socialism are right wing because they're authoritarian, nationalist, racist, and seek to preserve existing hierarchies, which all can be quickly refuted.
You can also see the whispers of angry Marxist in saying "it's authoritarian so it's right wing" well does that mean every communist state ever is right wing? It doesn't seem a legitimate analysis to assume something is right wing solely because it is authoritarian. Rospierre's reign of terror was undoubtedly authoritarian but by the standards of the day extremely left wing.
Nationalism also seems like something you can't really peg on the right wing specifically. Were there no Soviet patriots? Considering Stalin's one nation policy that seems unlikely.
Racism is a non-starter. Marx himself was highly documented as deeply anti-Semitic despite being an ethnic Jew himself, and shockingly racist even for his time In Marx's time, there was little distinction between the capitalist and the Jew, and in his essay "On the Jewish Question", he writes "What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money". Many socialist regimes implemented state racism such as the Russians cracking down on Jews or the CCP participating in the Uigur genocide.
As for maintaining or restoring old hierarchies, that's also obviously wrong. Both Germany and Italy had an existing hierarchy of nobility prior to the takeover by fascism or German national socialism, and those ideologies sought to reconstruct society in its own novel image, a hallmark of socialism in the 20th century. One might consider it right wing that there were any hierarchies at all, but by that measure marxist and boshevik socialists were also right wing since they all ended up building new hierarchies in place of the old.
This understanding of what marxism, fascism, and german national socialism is important because today everything is claimed to be nazi or fascist if the speaker doesn't like it, but we need a real framework for what is and is not fascist. Simply saying "I don't like that" does not make something fascist or national socialist, it needs to fit within the frameworks of racial socialism or state socialism. We can define violence against fascism as violence against state socialism.
So back to the topic at hand, would I agree that violence is justified to fight such a thing? Well, that's tough to say. It's easy to say about Italian fascism since my grandfather did fight them and justly so. On the other hand, Spanish fascism existed well into the 1970s and only ended because the dictator died and his heir just happened to give up power to create a liberal democracy. And in yet another point of view, the left has created the postmodern bureaucratic state and largely staffed it, creating the current situation where 120 years ago the government made up 10% of GDP but today makes up 50%, and the so-called free market that remains is overwhelmingly regulated so much that it's ultimately the state in control. Outside the context of world war 2, I don't think I'd be willing to use violence regardless of how much I disagree with it. The government won't stop doing this simply because I physically attack it. In fact, it's likely to make things worse. We have countless examples of such, including situations like the Reichstag fire which justified state crackdowns.
Political violence by be cathartic, but often it's ineffective, or even horrific. The French Revolution may have killed off many from the aristocracy, but the reign of terror turned into a crime against humanity, a purge of anyone remotely dissenting until the crowd finally turned and ended the reign of terror by purging those tasked with purges. Violent revolutions in the Soviet Union and China resulted in mass death and further tragedy. By contrast, a lot of good things have come from people winning the argument relatively peacefully Europe's relative democracy didn't come about through revolution, but by convincing the royal families to give up power over time. The world slave trade ended not because of a particular act of violent revolution, but because anti-slavery won the moral argument.
With respect to current movements that widely use violence allegedly in pursuit of attacking fascism, I don't see "antifa" burning down FDA offices or central bank buildings or department of education buildings or welfare offices. So why don't they attack these elements of state socialism if they oppose fascism? In my opinion it's because they're lying. Opposition to fascism is a facade being used for good old fashioned thuggery.
Who do we attack? Anyone we don't like! If you think killing a baby in the womb is an unjustifiable violation of that baby's human rights and that shouldn't be allowed, then we don't like you and we'll attack! If you think local law enforcement should arrest people who have committed actual crimes that violated other people's rights, then we don't like you and we'll attack! If you want to vote for someone who wants to reduce state interference in the economy, we hate you and we'll attack!
Other than the fact that nobody wants to piss off violent terrorists, nobody believes that the violence is remotely in the name of opposing fascism. Often those antifa folks seem to be fighting in pursuit of more state socialism rather than less. They aren't fighting for liberty or smaller government, they're supporting and supported by the state, and part of the state that wants to encompass everything in our lives.
As someone who actually did punch people I perceived as bullies in the mouth for a long time, I don't recommend it.
Everyone glamorizes violence against people we don't like, but it's really short-sighted. And what if you're wrong and you're just being neurotic against someone innocent of what you think they're guilty of? Looking back I realized how meaningless it was, and that's one reason why in The Graysonian Ethic I specifically recommend against using violence as anything but an absolute last resort because it's almost never the answer and almost never ends the way you'd like it to.
Everyone glamorizes violence against people we don't like, but it's really short-sighted. And what if you're wrong and you're just being neurotic against someone innocent of what you think they're guilty of? Looking back I realized how meaningless it was, and that's one reason why in The Graysonian Ethic I specifically recommend against using violence as anything but an absolute last resort because it's almost never the answer and almost never ends the way you'd like it to.
I think studies I've seen "proving" UBI works have a number of major flaws.
For one, "universal basic income" studies aren't studying Universal Basic Income.
You might go "what? They gave people money, didn't they?" And that's true, but it wasn't universal. A friend of mine ended up selected for a UBI study.... But then was deselected when they discovered he had a middle class job. This means that these studies didn't look at the effects of universal basic income, but rather the effects of a means tested social welfare program, which is a different thing.
Universal Basic Income will have a potentially universal impact. It will affect the poor, but it can also have effects on the middle class and the rich, and if you're not looking at the whole picture, you aren't getting the whole picture.
Second, "universal basic income" studies aren't studying a government program of universal basic income.
They're studying what happens when a magic money fairy drops cash on people.
There are countries that has this through the magic of colonialism. Basically, you send people to go steal the wealth of the colonies and bring it home, making many people fabulously wealthy without any consequences for the people receiving the wealth.
Unfortunately the age of colonialism is over so you can't just go taking over other continents and nicking their shit, so a massive welfare program like this has to be paid for somehow, and mathematically it would have to be through massive tax increases on the entire working class. So to measure the effects of UBI you'd need to massively increase the taxes on the people who make money in your study to pay for the money you're handing out.
Some people think that you can tax just the rich to pay for it, and that's just a fantasy. Mathematically there isn't enough wealth to pay for UBI by just taxing the rich.
Some people you'll get more money back by cutting other government programs, and that's also a fantasy for two reasons. First, if you try to stop programs like medicare and medicaid to pay for UBI, you'll find out awfully quickly that you can't cut those programs (and I suspect social security would have similar challenges). Other programs like TANF are extremely limited and you'll find they simply don't have enough money to put even a tiny dent in the amount of money required for UBI.
Thirdly, "universal basic income" studies aren't studying a permanent program of universal basic income.
These studies have a fixed term. Maybe they're 6 months, or a year, or a few years, but there is a limited amount of grant money. This has a distinct effect on the behavioral effects you'd expect to see.
Consider yourself: If I said to you: "You're going to get $1000 a month for the next 12 months", what would you do? Well, knowing that the money has a time limit, I'd predict you'd use the money in ways that understand that the money is limited in scope. You might use it to go back to school, or you might use it to pay down debts, or maybe invest it. Now by contrast, if I said to you: "You're going to get $1000 a month and that's just how your life works now", would you treat that money differently? Would the reduced time pressure push you to consider looking at whether you really needed to be as productive in your life since you could potentially just get together with a few people and live a decent life under one roof? I feel like if my wife and I both had 1000 a month forever, I'd quite quickly be looking at what I could cut to just retire, and I'm a pretty high achiever. I bet a lot of other people would decide to do the same, especially if their jobs just had a massive pay cut because taxes rose like crazy.
Fourth, "universal basic income" studies can't predict society-wide consequences.
While it is undebatable that it wasn't quite the same thing due to direct supply-side disruptions, the COVID-19 Pandemic response sent massive amounts of money to individuals. This is part of why there has been high inflation for the past couple years, because people had more money but there was no commensurate increase in productivity (and in fact a drop). If we give productive members of society punishment for being productive, and we reward unproductive members of society for being unproductive, guess what sort of person you're going to build more of? And if I'm right and we'd see lower overall productivity,
Finally, there are studies that show "Universal Basic Income" isn't necessarily so great for the people getting it anyway.
Data published by Vivalt et. al. found Moderate decreases in labor supply (ie. people worked fewer hours by 1-2 hours per week), No significant impact on employment quality, No significant effect on entrepreneurship, Increased spending on healthcare (ie. people were able to spend money on healthcare they required, likely a positive), but ultimately it's likely that such a cash redistribution scheme would ultimate lead to more money in the hands of the ultra-rich and increasing poverty. https://reason.com/2024/07/25/bad-news-for-universal-basic-income/
From an economic standpoint you have to be very careful because "the map is not the territory" and money is not wealth, and wealth is not a static thing. You can give me a cup of sand, and if I'm skilled I can turn that worthless cup of sand into an expensive crystal vase worth thousands of times its original material cost. If I don't know how or I'm not willing to, then it will remain sand. In that way, wealth can be created by people from something that does not constitute wealth, and it can be destroyed of course, particularly if nobody is willing to maintain something that constitutes wealth or something that creates wealth.
There's a reason so many tech billionaires want UBI, and it's not because they're such wonderful and altruistic people (or they'd pay for it themselves). I suspect it's becuase they know UBI would stratify society into 3 classes of people: The ultra rich on the top who end up getting the money from UBI as people spend at their stores or on their platforms, the working class who end up getting taxed to death, and the underclass who would be getting free money every month and don't try to do much else. This social stratification would mean the already rich become much richer (even the taxes basically just go right back in their pockets), and the poor will become perpetually poor, and the middle class has a giant deus ex machina thumb on their back until the empire collapses.
For one, "universal basic income" studies aren't studying Universal Basic Income.
You might go "what? They gave people money, didn't they?" And that's true, but it wasn't universal. A friend of mine ended up selected for a UBI study.... But then was deselected when they discovered he had a middle class job. This means that these studies didn't look at the effects of universal basic income, but rather the effects of a means tested social welfare program, which is a different thing.
Universal Basic Income will have a potentially universal impact. It will affect the poor, but it can also have effects on the middle class and the rich, and if you're not looking at the whole picture, you aren't getting the whole picture.
Second, "universal basic income" studies aren't studying a government program of universal basic income.
They're studying what happens when a magic money fairy drops cash on people.
There are countries that has this through the magic of colonialism. Basically, you send people to go steal the wealth of the colonies and bring it home, making many people fabulously wealthy without any consequences for the people receiving the wealth.
Unfortunately the age of colonialism is over so you can't just go taking over other continents and nicking their shit, so a massive welfare program like this has to be paid for somehow, and mathematically it would have to be through massive tax increases on the entire working class. So to measure the effects of UBI you'd need to massively increase the taxes on the people who make money in your study to pay for the money you're handing out.
Some people think that you can tax just the rich to pay for it, and that's just a fantasy. Mathematically there isn't enough wealth to pay for UBI by just taxing the rich.
Some people you'll get more money back by cutting other government programs, and that's also a fantasy for two reasons. First, if you try to stop programs like medicare and medicaid to pay for UBI, you'll find out awfully quickly that you can't cut those programs (and I suspect social security would have similar challenges). Other programs like TANF are extremely limited and you'll find they simply don't have enough money to put even a tiny dent in the amount of money required for UBI.
Thirdly, "universal basic income" studies aren't studying a permanent program of universal basic income.
These studies have a fixed term. Maybe they're 6 months, or a year, or a few years, but there is a limited amount of grant money. This has a distinct effect on the behavioral effects you'd expect to see.
Consider yourself: If I said to you: "You're going to get $1000 a month for the next 12 months", what would you do? Well, knowing that the money has a time limit, I'd predict you'd use the money in ways that understand that the money is limited in scope. You might use it to go back to school, or you might use it to pay down debts, or maybe invest it. Now by contrast, if I said to you: "You're going to get $1000 a month and that's just how your life works now", would you treat that money differently? Would the reduced time pressure push you to consider looking at whether you really needed to be as productive in your life since you could potentially just get together with a few people and live a decent life under one roof? I feel like if my wife and I both had 1000 a month forever, I'd quite quickly be looking at what I could cut to just retire, and I'm a pretty high achiever. I bet a lot of other people would decide to do the same, especially if their jobs just had a massive pay cut because taxes rose like crazy.
Fourth, "universal basic income" studies can't predict society-wide consequences.
While it is undebatable that it wasn't quite the same thing due to direct supply-side disruptions, the COVID-19 Pandemic response sent massive amounts of money to individuals. This is part of why there has been high inflation for the past couple years, because people had more money but there was no commensurate increase in productivity (and in fact a drop). If we give productive members of society punishment for being productive, and we reward unproductive members of society for being unproductive, guess what sort of person you're going to build more of? And if I'm right and we'd see lower overall productivity,
Finally, there are studies that show "Universal Basic Income" isn't necessarily so great for the people getting it anyway.
Data published by Vivalt et. al. found Moderate decreases in labor supply (ie. people worked fewer hours by 1-2 hours per week), No significant impact on employment quality, No significant effect on entrepreneurship, Increased spending on healthcare (ie. people were able to spend money on healthcare they required, likely a positive), but ultimately it's likely that such a cash redistribution scheme would ultimate lead to more money in the hands of the ultra-rich and increasing poverty. https://reason.com/2024/07/25/bad-news-for-universal-basic-income/
From an economic standpoint you have to be very careful because "the map is not the territory" and money is not wealth, and wealth is not a static thing. You can give me a cup of sand, and if I'm skilled I can turn that worthless cup of sand into an expensive crystal vase worth thousands of times its original material cost. If I don't know how or I'm not willing to, then it will remain sand. In that way, wealth can be created by people from something that does not constitute wealth, and it can be destroyed of course, particularly if nobody is willing to maintain something that constitutes wealth or something that creates wealth.
There's a reason so many tech billionaires want UBI, and it's not because they're such wonderful and altruistic people (or they'd pay for it themselves). I suspect it's becuase they know UBI would stratify society into 3 classes of people: The ultra rich on the top who end up getting the money from UBI as people spend at their stores or on their platforms, the working class who end up getting taxed to death, and the underclass who would be getting free money every month and don't try to do much else. This social stratification would mean the already rich become much richer (even the taxes basically just go right back in their pockets), and the poor will become perpetually poor, and the middle class has a giant deus ex machina thumb on their back until the empire collapses.
[Admin Mode] I swear, I comment on a controversial post and the bots come out. Refreshed DNS a couple times, but the big change was enabling mod_evasive for now. It'll cause some faulty error messages (request is a legal request), but compared to the whole network being down it's fine -- and usually I can shut it off after a bit.
I saw some of the posts from that account in a news article yesterday, and it was unequivocally Democrat supporting posts. Honestly, the posts surprised me as being quite eloquent for a 14 year old who later became a murderer.
It's hard to remember this, but the left used to be fun. They used to party. They liked pretty girls in skimpy outfits. They made jokes that were funny and they often weren't even about politics. Around the same time period, the right looked really stiff, anti-fun, like anything you did would be judged. That I think is why things used to look the way they did.
I wouldn't say that things have completely flipped around, because back then there was a reason to be partying, times were relatively good. Today things are hard for a lot of good men, and we need to buckle down and do the right things to cultivate the future, but even so people whistle while they work and want to have some fun while cultivating the future with our team, and nobody wants to feel like they're standing in the path of a whip that'll come cracking down the moment we say the wrong thing.
I wouldn't say that things have completely flipped around, because back then there was a reason to be partying, times were relatively good. Today things are hard for a lot of good men, and we need to buckle down and do the right things to cultivate the future, but even so people whistle while they work and want to have some fun while cultivating the future with our team, and nobody wants to feel like they're standing in the path of a whip that'll come cracking down the moment we say the wrong thing.
There's a good reason she was kept on the sidelines this whole time, anyone sees her talk immediately starts to realize they don't like her, and her gaffes make Biden look like Obama.