I think the alternative is finding and defending your own space and possessions from others who have weapons and would take it from you, growing or hunting everything you require for survival, relying on whatever gifts other may give you or on trading whatever excesses you have accumulated for other needs.
Money has made this difficult job much much more efficient, leading to a vast excess of wealth accumulation*. Everybody can focus on what they can offer, in exchange for tokens of value. Those tokens of value are then exchanged for the goods and services that they didn't otherwise need to create on their own.
*The problem is that the accumulation is focused on the people and their heirs, mostly, who've acquired tangible assets. Although a lot of the wealth has been reinvested in improvements. We have GPS guided robotic harvesters now, for example and not as many people need to toil just to live.
There is no system through which to redistribute this wealth once it's locked into some dynastic family's coffers. There are many governments that could and should be tasked with improving the place constantly, however they typically suck at the job.
I think the solution now is the same as it has always been. When the masses are too pissed off they'll either stop reproducing, decline in population, leaving the production capabilities of the wealthy in decline, or they'll fight back in a revolt.
Forgot I had this
While I generally agree with the overall sentiment and like the idea of UBI, saying we're the only species that pays to exist doesn't seem right. We're the only one that uses money, so of course we're the only species that has would pay money to exist. However, other species all over the world, many right outside our doorsteps, live much harder lives than we do and pay with their lives if they make a mistake. If I had to choose between working a job and being out in the great outdoors having to farm/hunt/craft and such to survive, I'd choose having a job, which is a choice we all pretty much make anyways. At any point I could quit my job, walk out the door, and live with just the clothes on my back... and I would probably not be able to hack it. It's not much of a choice and it's pretty much coercion, but the choice is there.
Sure, effectively all land is claimed by some entity, but not to deprive people from being able to make use of it. The US for example needs to claim ownership of its territory to have it recognized by other nations and enforce its own laws. Otherwise, someone could lure you into the wilderness and kill you without penalty like it's Runescape. And even "owned" land will be subject to emminent domain when the needs of the many demand it.
But buying undeveloped land for homesteading is cheap; you only have to have a token price for depriving the public of its potential value by your reservation. Otherwise, nothing prevents someone from taking it all for themselves for free (which really would leave nothing for others) just to not use it. Even if you did it illegitimately and just started using fresh land without paperwork or anything, you would likely still have recognized rights of ownership through common law squatters rights just by using it effectively for some time. But if you wanted to say, vote, or get mail, or have utilities, or have road access, or otherwise engage with larger society, the government would likely at least want property taxes. After all, getting that to you would take from the pool of resources used for the common good, and you need to contribute a fair share.
If you really wanted to forgo the social contract entirely, nothing is really stopping you from going into deep wilderness 100 miles away from civilization and fending for yourself, but people recognize that the benefits of being a member of society greatly outweigh the costs. Other animals do have to work to live and reserve their own territory. They just don't use anything as formal as currency for exchanging work for resources, and reap fewer rewards from less specialization.
I personally support UBI but trying to pretend nature is somehow more fair than modern human civilization is just arguing in bad faith. The systems we enjoy are certainly flawed but also undeniably an asset at recognizing the rights of others to live. Nature's resource distribution system is literally a combination of luck and might makes right.
This is fucking dumb. Even in the very ancient of ancient of time, people were working to survive. They had to go out, and farm the fucking berries out of the bush and hunt deers and what not. If you couldn't do that, I don't think you could be a part of the society. And then, another fucking tribes comes in and try to fuck you up.
What a fucking stupid statement to say. Nothing is free. Even if you remove everyone and everything, you still have to work to survive. And what a good way to survive than to be in a society that separates this burden. Some people farm, some people defends, some people heals and some people educate. Woooow, such a free tribe, they have to work to survive.
Henry George had it right - Just Tax Land
Universal basic income does not fix inequality, it doesn't take existing accumulated wealth into account. You get X amount per month, yay, food. Jeff Bezos gets the same and throws it on the money pile without blinking an eye. It will lead to more inflation and you'll still be poor compared to who's wealthy. Socially corrected incomes are a way better tool for battling inequality, and in today's world's, it shouldn't anymore cost a million-person bureaucracy to run a wealth-distributing system either.
EDIT: I'm actually a believer in Basic Income, but this is a silly argument. Bad arguments do a disservice to the idea of Basic Income and make the battle uphill that much harder.
I read this two days ago when it was posted, and it didn't sit well with me because it didn't make sense. I hand to think about it for while about why it didn't make sense, but I have it now.
Lets break this down:
We’re the only species who must pay to existWe're really the only species that uses money regularly. So at first glance the literal statement is true but irrelevant: We're the only species that must pay, because we're the only species that uses money. So the literal definition is that other species don't have to pay. True, but they don't get to use money to store work. Our society has determined that "money" is a method to store "work".
What the author is saying in spirit is: We're the only species who has to work to exist.
If indeed I have the author's meaning right, then this is clearly false. Every other species has to do some level of work to exist. Even parasites will not have a second generation without working to procreate. This brings us to the author's next statement:
In a private property system where all the land was claimed by others before we were born, and everything we need to stay alive costs money....If you're willing to lower yourself to an animal that doesn't use money with all of the freedom and consequences that comes with that, you don't need to spend a time on land, food, shelter or ANYTHING. There are huge swaths of land all over the world where you could live in the wilderness likely your entire life and never see another human being who will bother you. Most of northern Canada and northern Russia and completely unpopulated for hundreds of hectares. Same with lots of the middle part of Australia. If you're willing to live off the land without modern medicine, communication, entertainment, or societal infrastructure then there's no one out there to force you to pay for anything.
The author goes off the rails in suggesting an non-human species, which has no benefits of humanity, has to pay for nothing but lives and dies off the land and at the will of other predators and nature, is equal to the life of a human in modern society with modern medicine, agriculture, law, defense, technology and entertainment.
To the author: If you want to live like a non-human species (an animal) there are plenty of places you can do that. No one will stop you. No one will make you pay anything. Have at it!
If you want the benefits of other people's work in a society, then you have to contribute something back to that society that society values.*EDIT: I'm removing the last sentence because it needs more context for a much larger argument. The rest of my post stands.Not necessarily. All species need to scavenge for their own subsistence unless they want to die, so there is a motivation there to go out and get food (i.e. other species), among other resources from the environment specific to their capabilities.
There is no free lunch.
BUT species don't necessarily have to exchange resources with others to live in their habitat. They might need to defend it from other organisms of their same species or of other species, or they can share it with those. Exchange relationships can also arise, but they aren't necessary to happen.
Habitat can of course degrade over time, so there is a motivation to maintain and repair that habitat or move to a more suitable one nearby or far away.
This is all to say that humans, the exceptional beings we are at solving problems and doing amazing things, should be able to invent ways to get around entropy and inconvenience, which we have to a degree: not perfectly, though.
Regarding this article, I'm not sure I want people to own land for the sake of "owning". Perhaps a case can be made where people who use the land apportioned to them get to keep it over time (see what the Nordic countries are doing). This would exclude land and homes people have in other states or countries.
Not sure what the other consequences of this practice are tho, so I welcome any feedback anyone might have
Yeah, I've been pointing this out since it kinda clicked in my mind and I realized this (which, to my shame, took quite a while).
Most of us are not born free because to have a roof over our heads and food in our table we have to work within the system and get paid what the system allows us to get, since we can't just occupy a piece of land, build a house and farm it.
We have at best "limited" freedom, depending on nationality (for example, an EU passport lets you easilly try to live in in quite a list of countries), opportunities (i.e. is Education free and good quality were you grew up) and the biggest one, how much money and connections do mommy and daddy have - all of which dictate the options available to us, but only a tiny number (the sons and daughters of the rich) have full freedom.
Image Transcription:
Hachyderm post by user Scott Santens @scottsantens@hachyderm.io reading
"We're the only species who must pay to exist.
"In a private property system where all the land was claimed by others before we were born, and everything we need to stay alive costs money, unconditional #basicincome is a basic 👏 human 👏 right 👏 to the resources we all need to exist."
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This is why we need Land Value Tax, redistributed by UBI.
So disappointing that nobody in this thread has mentioned Georgism
We're born slaves to society. We are not free. Everything in the end has the threat of violence if you don't do what society wants you to do.
Best case you can go forage in the "wild", but its claimed wild. There is no free land. The freest people are perhaps homeless people, because there is almost nothing you can threaten them with, they have nothing to lose, in a way, its the only freedom that exists.
If you stop paying rent or your mortgage, you will be forcibly removed by a trainer killer. If you resist, you may be killed in an altercation and become a statistic. If you don't pay taxes, you may end up in a cage, or perhaps killed by another trainer killer in a mishap.
When you "buy" a house, you are renting the land, sure it temporarily has your name on the deed, and you own the house itself, until you stop paying property taxes, then another trainer killed will come take it from you, perhaps put you in a cage. Don't even get me started on HOAs, the wrong color paint could cause you to lose your life's savings because a Karen thinks it might lower her property value.
If you don't raise your kids perfectly, a trainer killer can come take them away from you. Even someone falsely reporting you for improperly raising your kids can cause you to end up losing them. Your kids don't belong to you, they're your cute little liabilities, one misstep and the most important thing in your life is taken away from you.
What if I just want to do nothing? Where can I go and just chill, and eat berries, and like the occasional squirrel or whatever? Society won't permit it, you might end up in a cage, or again killed by a trained killer. Those are someone's berries, those squirrels are probably a protected species.
Freedom is an illusion.
A lot of people here are making comparisons to animals in nature, but there's one big difference. Yes, animals have to work to survive, but they're not born into debt. Humans effectively are because we need things like housing that are already owned by someone, and they're free to change exorbitant prices for letting other people use what they own. At least in nature no animal can own more territory than it can personally control, and when it dies the territory is up for grabs by other animals that need it.
We are the only species with "money" too
OP just needs to find a place where there are remaining indigenous people to bully, or go live where there are still imperial ambitions and a Ukraine that needs to be de-nazified
(Is a slash ‘s’ or smiley still relevant for those who miss that dark humor is also humor?)
— Someone needs a reality check on how many generations it’s been since most developed countries had land left free for the taking. It’s not new that a scarce commodity is an expensive commodity
— Someone also needs a reality check on which land is in demand and which not. It’s still possible to find land cheap- in places people don’t want to live. Even back when we could bully indigenous people, settlers were still looking for land where no one wanted to farm
— Are you really saying UBI is not necessary, if a snowflake can claim land for next to nothing in a rundown town or desert/wilderness area?
This bit about free land is exactly why the term “snowflake” exists
We also need the minimum wage to be double what a living wage would be
In the US, I don't think that UBI could work. Why? Because then businesses and companies will raise the price of everything. Real estate, food, etc. And then prices will stay high, no longer to be afforded with the given UBI. That's what will happen.
EDIT: I'm not saying that I'm against UBI or that it doesn't work– I'm saying that capitalist system of the US will find some way to fuck its implementation.
