“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”
Modern rent seeking is rooted in a feudal concept. The lord maintained an army that protected the land, and the workers paid the lord for the upkeep of the army that protected them.
Modern landlords provide absolutely nothing but exploitation of their tenants. They take rent and provide nothing anywhere near equal in value.
They are parasites on the working class. Our labor gives them profit, and they offer only what should be ours by right.
We pay to live here. It’s our home. You only rent seek, you fucking parasite.
I hate when people clap alongside every word they say. It's so damn obnoxious and annoying, it makes me disregard whatever input they want to give.
Leftists try not to be insufferable whilst doing/saying leftist things challenge [impossible]
– sincerily, a leftist
I agree. It's trashy as fuck.
Me 👏 too 👏
100% with you. It's like writing "Period" at the end of what you said, as if that makes it more true. And, ironically, it's almost always some take that requires ignoring all nuance.
It isn't ironic at all. Ignoring nuance is the whole point. Saying "Period." at the end of a statement emphasizes that the statement is complete, and that you will not entertain any qualifying subclauses being appended to it. It's explicitly rejecting nuance.
Still annoying, though.
Eh, it's for emphasis, it's just a style that gives a visual along with the words that indicate a specific physical movement that some people interpret in a specific way and changes how they are communicating, thus changing the message in a minute way. It's not hurting you, if it's enough to make you want to disregard what they are saying that seems pretty petty of you. Just because people communicate differently from you isn't enough of a reason to disrespect them or what they have up say. Now, if they're saying something abhorrent, that's a different story, but you're not an idiot, just judgemental
Really? That was your shut-it-down moment?
Not the : let’s compare ourselves to other species which have no doctors, science, hygiene, toilets, devices or ready made food as to why were such a cushy society that hoarding money really shouldn’t be a thing we do and kinda missed the point of why a society is usually formed?
Okay, but other species aren't even able to pay to exist. If a human wants them dead, they dead —unless they the property of another human being of course.
They're also at the mercy of nature and all it entails. And nature is fucking brutal.
And they do pay to exist, just not money. They spend their time seeking food, expend their calories seeking more, risk their well-being to defend what they have from competitors, etc.
And that's how we would live too without exchanging money for good and services. It's just a resource, and no species is free from having to gather and manage resources.
You act as if paying to exist is a privilege. It is a requirement of being a human in our society. A requirement that functionally requires you to be exploited by those who won the birth lottery.
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.
think the alternative is finding and defending your own space and possessions from others
Surely there must be a middle way.
I don't mind renting land from the state. I pay my property tax and income tax and in return get protection from the police and military and health care and more, basically a whole society to live in.
The problem is that the landlords set themselves as the middleman who rent the land from the state and sublet it to the people. I don't remember any of my landlords defending me or my belongings from wilderbeasts or other people. They're just middlemen who have increased the potential pricing of all the land so that it is no longer affordable for everyone to rent directly from the state. They can only do this because they have enough capital to get their hands on the land in the first place, or by inheritance. The price of the land is artificial. It's not about how much it's worth for anyone living there. No, the price is only about how much can theoretically be leeched off the people needing to live on that land
I'd argue one impressive thing about our current global system is it's possible to make some improvements without total revolution. Will it be enough to, say, avoid climate catastrophe or nuclear disaster? I don't know. But democracy is a pretty good invention when the alternative is either no change or armed conflict.
!remindme 10 years
something something the industrial revolution
Shit take, the average person only used to have to do 20 hours a week of labour to feed their family
Money didn't make labour "more efficient"
This only works when you divide the time spent working over the year. As a medival peasant you worked your ass off in spring or whenever you sow your fields, kept it up while it grew, which was somewhat normal working times by todays standard, and toiled for double digit hours in harvesting season again. After that was time to do literally nothing. When you look at seasonal holidays in many european countries, they are mostly at the end of harvesting seasons, when you could easily be blackout drunk for a week because there was nothing else to be done. I personally don't mind regular working hours when the alternative is half a year of 15 hour shifts and half a year of more or less no work.
You can easily have medieval levels of quality of life working like 1 hour a week today. No one, not even kings a few hundred years ago had modern quality of life even with vast amounts of wealth extracted from whole continents of peasants. Modern money and economic systems allow for global trade and innovation that makes things Napolean couldn't dream of into boring every day stuff for you and me.
Give me the alternative. At least that way I have a chance and my opponents aren't an army of police who just wanna make me a wage slave in their system. Give me the alternative every single time. I'll take protecting myself 10 times out of ten over being exploited by people who are pretending to protect everyone.
Forgot I had this
We are also the only species not threatened to be hunted down and eaten at the whim of another species. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.
id pay taxes not to experience that
No, we're just threatened and hunted down on the whim of others within our own species.
(though fortunately being eaten is a very rare occurrence)
surviving in a system that it is considered normal if I accumulate all the available food in region for my personal benefit, even if the people in the said region need this food for survival.
Ok if you think it’s so similar go Try being a wildrat. There’s no doctor or hygiene or antibiotics , living as a scavenger and no electronic device to tell anyone about it. Food is what you can find and it’s rotten. Sure you get to shit wherever you want to but parasites are common place. And literally no one will care if you die while you have your brain eaten alive.
We also have devices to fight boredom….flushable toilets…..someone takes away our garbage….doctors…someone makes our clothing, washing machines, hygiene….
Capitalism is a system where you die if nobody needs you to do anything. Nobody needing your help is supposed to be a good thing.
That's incorrect, it's a system where you die if nobody wants you to do anything, which is a much lower threshold to clear given how many things can be delegated.
Like, you can make a living making art, which is not necessary but definitely something people want, if you're good at it.
Capitalism is a system where you die if nobody wealthy needs you to do anything.
Unpaid labour is still labour, and there are unfortunately billions of people living, and dying, in poverty who do an endless stream of labour for other people and their community, from caring for children, elderly, and disabled people, to cooking and cleaning, and providing a whole range of other physical, mental, and emotional support.
Them not being compensated for it is the feature of capitalism, not the need for labour itself, which leads nicely to
Nobody needing your help is supposed to be a good thing.
Actually, no, it isn't. Humans are interdependent and need each other to function as a society (even on the most a-social level - you're unlikely to be producing your own food, power, water supply, buildings, building materials, and so on, you need others to live, and at different points in life others will almost certainly need you in different ways). That's exactly why a hyper individualistic society like capitalism encourages leads to the kind of dystopia we have now.
I think you're defining "compensation" a bit too narrowly. Just because people are doing work of some kind in their community and not getting monetary wages for it doesn't mean they aren't being compensated. All human interaction is in some sense a transaction, it might just be more amorphous and unquantifiable than x many dollars. Friendships are trades. If a friendship isn't worthwhile for people, they generally end the friendship, even though most people wouldn't dream of assigning a dollar amount of value to a friendship.
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.
I don't think this is true when you can get arrested for trying to sleep outside or even just being I'm one place for too long. Vagrancy laws have been around for a very long time and have always been predatory. They used to be able to make someone a slave for not having a home. In the US our 13th amendment says you can legally be made a (prison) slave for committing "a crime".
I didn't write the original post, but did post it and it's informative how much people get caught on that phrase. My take is that people are paying a gatekeeper. It's not about "does it take effort to live" or an appeal to return to nature. It's, "you have to work to live, plus you have to work extra so someone else doesn't have to work."
Not sure I'd lead with that specific phrase in the future, but it does seem to have generated a lot of interest and discussion.
Yeah, I get the overall idea, I'm just being pedantic. You can't just live your life without paying somebody for the privilege of existence, we're basically still medieval peasants paying a Lord for the right to live in his fiefdom. If you look over a map of the US/Western world, probably very square foot of land is owned by somebody somewhere. We're trading the value of our labor, which has been artificially suppressed for the value of a piece of property, which have been artificially inflated. It's all very one-sided and benefits people who provide seemingly no real value to society.
Working for oneself (the way wild critters do it) is fundamentally different from paying to exist. Capitalism creates a minority of people for whom all the necessary work of staying alive is simply done by other people, and a majority of people who must do more work than would be strictly necessary to sustain themselves because they have to sustain themselves and the people whose only contribution is that they've been arbitrarily designated the "owners" of the things we need to live. That's what we mean by "humans are the only species that has to pay to exist". In order for me to live, I have to create more real, material wealth than is actually necessary for my survival because someone else is entitled to use the threat of violence in order to keep me from the wealth I create (the only real definition of ownership is the right to use violence to enforce exclusivity).
Or we could, you know, give free housing, healthcare and food to people who need them. UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it.
UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it.
Sorry, but that is simply not true. Alaska has had a form of UBI for decades funded by oil revenues. It decreased inflation. Canada also has a basic income for families that also hasn't caused inflation.
With the introduction of this dividend in 1982, Alaska went from having the highest rate of inflation in the US to the lowest. Source
Not to dispute it, but the sources for the Alaska argument are a Twitter post made by the organization itself (which just says that businesses will have discounts when the check goes out) and a Medium post.
And the source used for the argument in the Medium post is a link to another post made by the same author. His proof that UBI reduced inflation is... A line graph of CPI comparing Alaska vs the US.
If the oil dividend caused the decrease in inflation, you would be able to find many scholarly articles on the subject, yet the entire proof is a single graph.
I wouldn’t really count the Canada one since it’s not truly “Universal”, but the Alaska one is interesting.
It honestly seems like it’s talking of some utopic society (“Businesses would continue to compete for our money by offering high quality at reasonable prices” - when has that ever happened in the past 20 years?), but it does bring some sources to the table so probably has a point, even if I still see that as overly optimistic.
Anyway mine was just a digression, I’m not going to vote against UBI or anything similar if it ever comes up, I think there’s better solutions but I’m definitely not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
We're talking about vastly different sums of money and access to infrastructure.
Alaska's 1600 per year is more akin to a tax refund. It's not dramatically changing anyone's income and if it is, they're barely scraping by regardless.
Alaska is also so remote that everything is more expensive.
If 300 million people suddenly had an extra 24,000 dollars to spend in a year, you don't think every business in the country would be scrambling to get their cut? Most companies see you as an obstacle between them and their money that you happen to be holding.
Graph showing the last paragraph of my answer. I had to reply with another instance as lemm.ee has disabled images.
You can check the graph from the stlouis fed data and it lines up.
It is vastly simpler for the government to send everyone a check or deposit than to provide free housing, healthcare and food to people and decide who is 'worthy' of receiving them. And let's be honest most social programs in America are the first thing on the chopping block. At least with a UBI, its very easy for the average person to tell when its been cut. If only a few 'poor' people participate in a program, it will be a lot easier for the government to cut it than if every legal adult in the country gets it.
I mean, free Healthcare is already being done in most of the first world and free housing is too, albeit in fewer places and with restrictions. Free food is trickier but I’m sure there’s a way to figure it out.
Imo the issue with UBI isn’t that it would get cut, it’s that it wouldn’t get raised according to inflation. It already happens with “conventional” income so I think just flat out giving the product with no adjustments needed is better, it’s not like as time goes on people are gonna need “more houses”.
UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it
Says who?
Inflation and generally every market trying to push the limits of how much they can exploit their customers in every possible occasion.
I mean, if I have to choose between the current situation and UBI I’ll obviously go for that one, I’m not 100% sure it’s not going to work. But if we have to try and radically change society with a very expensive procedure, I’d rather they do it in the most foolproof way possible.
Imagine the quality of life of the disabled population if they didn't have to try so hard to get these things. It's so fucking hard when you can't work or can only work a little bit.
Put free education there and we are Gucci.
I am considering skipping trade school, which would be valuable, because I can't even afford the $10k program.
UBI only works in a perfect society where the market doesn’t take advantage of it.
Please expand.
You and everyone you know has an extra $2k dollars per month from UBI. Your landlord raises rents because he knows everyone has 2k more.
In a perfect world your landlord would not be greedy and take that money. He would have actual competition from other landlords willing to rent. We don't live in a perfect world.
Increasing the money supply causes inflation.
Spoken like someone who has studied large-scale implementations of UBI. Oh, what's that? There aren't any? Hmm.
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.
I personally support UBI but trying to pretend nature is somehow more fair than modern human civilization is just arguing in bad faith.
I don't think this has anything to do with anything. Nobody's saying "we should all live in the wilderness but money fucks that up." We have more than enough to facilitate modern survival for everyone and then some, but we manufacture scarcity while people starve. Because greed.
Nobody’s saying “we should all live in the wilderness but money fucks that up.”
Literally many people here in this thread are saying that. Many very stupid people.
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.
You're right that people need to work. I think you're reading something that's not there.
The point is that we need a physical place to exist, to sleep, to work. And since all physical places are already owned, in addition to the work we normally would have to do, we now have to pay a portion of our labor to people who own things. And sure, after we've been working a bit we start to own things too. But it's an uneven playing field. If you didn't come into the world owning, you can be denied work. You can be made homeless.
If we don't want the world to devolve back to the scenario you described where another tribe comes and takes what you've worked for by force, we should guarantee a base level of human needs being met.
It's not wrong that our basic needs are exploited by others, but it is wrong to say that we're the only species who pays to exist. All life must "pay" by expending energy to find food and shelter. We've just developed a system where we earn imaginary currency to buy things instead of having to go out and do all the work necessary to stay alive ourselves.
The sentence "we are the only species that pay to survive" is the most stupid argument one can make for UBI. That's what is upsetting. Maybe UBI is a good idea, maybe not. But this argument is just not convincing, at best, it feels like a joke. What I'm saying is, we will always have to work to survive, no matter what.
I agree that our society are way too individualistic. We don't care about each other anymore. It's as if we don't need society anymore these days. We take a lot of thing that society give us for granted and we don't even realize it.
If we don’t want the world to devolve back to the scenario you described where another tribe comes and takes what you’ve worked for by force, we should guarantee a base level of human needs being met.
The scenario they described demonstrably never existed in humanity until hoarding of money and power by individuals became a thing (so feudalism then capitalism).
Also, claiming land is what all territorial animals do. They maintain high resource areas with violence. We are not so different. Nature is scarry.
The first sentence really throws it off. UBI might be a good idea, but it’s not because we’re somehow unique in the animal kingdom.
That's what I"me saying. The first senyetis ridiculous. It's not serious.
If society will entitle me to go out and take anything I need or kill any animal I see, you'd have a point. The social contract of "private property" is only equitable between the rich and poor if there is some counteracting element in society that prevents people from suffering from the things they would be able to take on their own in the lack.
Further, there's a sort of problem when you compare present society with past society. We've been working for thousands of years to make each generation live better than the last. Hunger, especially childhood hunger, should hit zero by now.
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.
Literally bullshit you could easily look up and debunk for yourself in about 5 minutes (here, I'll even save you making any effort and share this link again https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145).
The fact that you in your ableist ageist mind moulded by capitalism to only see humans for the value of what they can "produce" for you, doesn't actually mean that any of the bullshit you've been led to believe (and are comfortable believing) is true, it just means you're a bit of an ageist ableist boot licking wilfully ignorant asshole.. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Not sure if you're functionally illiterate or just retarded but even that speculative opinion piece concedes that warfare came hand in hand with agriculture.
You are the asshole for not understanding that saying that we are the only species that pay to survive is the most stupid and not serious take anyone could ever fucking say.
You don't even know my stance on capitalism or what I believe. Stay on topic or get the fuck out.
Pretty sure there's no basic income for Lions either
Lions eat for free.
The cost is that they hunt it.
Better to pay than fight tooth and nail for survival. Everything pays in one way or another.
Yeah it's not really the paying part that is bad, in and of itself.
It's that there are people who defy the socially accepted rules, are greedy, are corrupt, or otherwise go against the herd for their own selfish gain. They warp and twist the rules when they have the power to do so to turn things intended to create equality into machines of oppression. And then they turn around and tell people it's not them, but the group they are oppressing who is to blame... And for some reason, people believe it.
We should change UBI to "universal battle (interspecies)"
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.
If anything they'll pay loads to smart people who can help them calculate the absolute minimum, taking away your freedom to choose what to eat, when to eat, where to live, how to live etc.
I get the sentiment, but they will create the absolute worst possible outcome as it benefits them the most.
That's quite a shallow take on the whole thing. Universal Income's main impacts are indirect and affect the whole of society, for example:
- It allows people to give it a go as inventors or artists at any point of their lifes, rather than the traditional 2 points of "young adult still getting money from your parents" and "having retired (for a few by having made so much money that can retire early) and do what he or she always wanted to do".
- It places a floor on all incomes. Specifically if Universal Income is high enough so that people can afford housing and food from it alone, nobody will ever accept any jobs paying the same or less - all jobs will have to offer something beyond it to attract any workers.
- Less crime because the sorts of crimes that desperate people commit and other "low yield" petty crimes will pretty much dissapear because they're not worth the risk and people don't need to do it.
As for means testing it or not, it really boils down to the complexity and cost associated with means testing: if it's cheaper if not means tested, why do it? It suspect Jeff Bezos' "pleasure" in getting Universal Income will be nothing next to what the losses from not to being able to pay shit salaries and treat his workers like shit anymore will make him feel.
Those are the advantages of a redistributional, social security safety net income and a minimum wage. UBI does not deliver, because EVERYONE gets it. It is impossible that for example housing prices would stay the same. They'd rise, because now the kid with the rich parent still outbids you: (UBI) vs (UBI + rich parents), the inequality in society stays the same, at best. It would only work if accumulated capital is redistributed equally over everyone as well. Which is communism.
Social corrections to existing system are superior. Not everyone should get the same. Some people need more, some need less.
Yes, everyone should have the right to good housing, food and to live stressfree (that is, with a bit of a financial buffer instead of pay cheque to pay cheque), but UBI will not accomplish that. Social-democratic systems such as Western and northern Europe already have, do, to reasonable extent.
How would socially corrected incomes work? You tell the government you made $500k this year and they tell you that you can keep $400k?
You're right that UBI does not create equality, it's just a floor for basic needs being covered. It's probably a little more palatable politically (ha) than socially corrected incomes.
I would argue we need other systemic changes like anti-monopoly enforcement, stronger unions and massive worker cooperatives to even start to address inequality, because of the disparity in power.
That's sort of how it works yes. Most western countries already have similar things. If you, for example, make less than 1200 € per month, you get an extra 300 € to get to what is theoretically needed to survive. In Belgium it's called "leefloon". In Germany it's "Burgergeld". It is the very lowest anyone can "earn". You only need to prove residence and a few other things (they want to shield the system from recent migrants), the bar for being eligible is very low, the main factor is your (lack of) income. The tier 'higher' is unemployment money. It's a nicer cheque, but you have to "actively search for a job". You need to have worked and contributed to this system for x years to be eligible. Both exclude people who clearly don't need a UBI. Which is why it's superior. There is 0 societal benefit from giving wealthy people more money for no reason whatsoever. The main issue with the existing systems is that taxes for the wealthy and corps got too damn low to support it, and that such systems require a big bureaucracy to verify who is eligible and who isn't, and to guide them towards social housing, education, jobs etc. Tho the second argument becomes less and less valid in a digital age. 95 % of needed information I'd already in government databases.
On top it's also how the entire tax system works, and for good reason.
You earn 500k.
First 100k: 10% tax. second 100k: 20% tax. ... Last 100k: 50% tax.
You make more, you contribute more. That's how the dream worked very well for a long time. It's just that the higher tax brackets went down and down and down... giving everyone random money for nothing every month fixes no social inequality issues at all. Potentially making it worse.
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.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.
Although you have to contribute something that someone else will pay for such as not parenting. Our society disregards parenting even though it gains greatly from its benefit (or in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, suffers greatly when parenting is neglected) While we don't literally toss our children out to the elements, the degree to which children are disregarded is conspicuous.
And for most of us, we are expected to contribute more than we receive, as demonstrated by the plutocrats who gain from and hoard those profits. For the rest of us, we get meager benefits from living as bonded servants in society, but we don't get full benefits of mutuality. And for most of us, our benefits exclude healthcare, nutrition, etc. which should be communal. When we have the capacity to automate a particular duty, it is not the rest of us who gain from that benefit, but the elite who cease paying workers to do it.
We've yet to see a mutualistic community that assures its wealth and privileges are evenly distributed but we certainly see ones more mutualistic than the ones that have to rely on thought-terminating clichés like Living here is better than living in the wild (and yes, I suspect even all of Canada and Siberia is alloted and owned.) Living here might be better than in the wild, but it is still miserable for the most of us. It's still feudalism and slavery only with extra obfuscating steps.
And now our civilization careens towards high existential risk, and we're going to see if it really is easier to imagine the end of humanity or the end of capitalism.
Although you have to contribute something that someone else will pay for such as not parenting.
I'm sorry, that's not allowed by the premise of the OP's post. The OP's post is making an attempt to say that only human's have to pay to exist.
Under that narrative, you're welcome to embrace the parenting style of non-human species. I believe that mostly means scattering your reproductive DNA in various ways in a numbers game hoping a small number of your offspring actually make it to adulthood to reproduce on their own while the rest of your offspring die of exposure the elements, predation by other species higher on the food chain, or easily preventable diseases.
OP's post encourages you to embrace the superior lifestyle of non-human species!
The problem here is that you don't have a clue about anything you're saying
That the OP's post is specious? I'm pretty aware of that.
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
Regarding this article, I'm not sure I want people to own land for the sake of "owning".
You are on the path to becoming a socialist!
Good video: https://youtu.be/m1m7WmKJZyQ
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 @[email protected] 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."
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜 We have a community! If you wish for us to transcribe something, want to help improve ease of use here on Lemmy, or just want to hang out with us, join us at [email protected]!]
This is why we need Land Value Tax, redistributed by UBI.
So disappointing that nobody in this thread has mentioned Georgism
UBI is just another populist handout, what We need is affordable housing and food not more money for it, making it partially state-run and/or controlled would make people look more optimistic about the future.
Let's plot it out: Who would be eligible for the affordable housing and food? What will we do to make sure it's affordable? How will people get it?
Do you think that all people ought to have a place to live and enough to eat? If so, one appeal of UBI is it's simple (compared to alternatives) to implement. Everyone gets it, and each individual can sort out the details.
While you're not wrong, prices need to come down, a UBI is probably the easiest thing we could implement literally overnight, cut back on some of the more aggressive welfare we currently have, save money overall and improve outcomes for a very large number of people. It's not a fix-all, never was, but it's a huge first step.
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.
The freest people are perhaps homeless people
This is one of the most ridiculously privileged things I've ever read
It's the correct take if...
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You think freedom is not having anyone tell you what you can't do.
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You think homeless people don't constantly get told what they can't do
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You don't think freedom is being free to live the life you want.
In other words, someone dumped in the middle of the Sahara without food or water, and a pair of broken legs will just love being the freest person on earth until their death in a few hours.
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Yea, I mean you're not particularly free if you can't sleep anywhere without either drunk people assaulting you or a land owner kicking you out, or if you need to constantly worry about finding electrical outlets just to keep your phone charged or worry about finding a tap or water fountain to get water. And you're never able to eat actually pleasant food because you can't even access a cooker or even a microwave/toaster and you almost certainly can't afford food that is prepared for you.
I can only imagine their image of being homeless is having one of those vans that cost like $40k USD to kit out with pretty much everything you would have in a house... in which case yea I guess that would be pretty liberating but you should probably specify that if it's what you mean.
Oh god you 100% watch Rick and Morty
I sure do, but not sure I recall the reference. This was not inspired by R&M, at least not consciously. Episode?
I'm with you for most of this, but children should never be property
most astut short narrative desribing the current police state of The United States of America 🇺🇸 🦅👯👮
That is one ‘Wtf first sentence’ if I ever saw it… All other species shit literally anywhere and do not have ready made food. And parents eat children or fling them out of the nest if they can’t feed them all. There are no doctor rats. Watch a documentary or two.
Communists are the only people who believe that we are the only animals that can completely upend and violate the rules of nature that all other animals have to live by.
And monsters are the only monsters looking for opportunities to eat babies in a society where that is not necessary.
the Amish entered the chat
Man you don't know much about the Amish then. Wild people with insane secret wealth (that they don't really touch) that get up to all kinds of shit
I wonder if this guy realizes… we don’t actually have a right to exist,
I mean, how would you legislate that? The universe pays a fine everytime it offs somebody?
We don't have a right to free speech or to bear arms or vote either. Rights are a human invention, based on what we've observed makes for a (more or less) functioning society
Guys it's the natural law enthusiast!
I'm sorry but this is actually one of the dumbest things I've ever fucking read.
Yes, obviously, you cannot legislate reality itself into giving people better lives.
But you can very realistically legislate the political and economic systems which we live in to give people better lives.
I'm sorry but this is actually one of the dumbest things I've ever fucking read.
No, it’s one of the most sarcastic things you’ve read. But I assumed the /s was obvious from the whole “no right to exist” part
Reminds me of a Ben Franklin quote:
" A Republic, if you can keep it."
Rights are yours only if you can keep it. How? Vote for the people who fight for your rights. Be vocal. When all else fails. Fight for it.
Narrator: "They couldn't."
"Rights" only apply to how other humans act.
This is hardly a point.
Capitalists need us to be alive in order to work their machines and build their bridges. The least they could do is make sure we don't starve to death.
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it. ...those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
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.
and when it dies the territory is up for grabs by other animals that need it.
BEFORE it dies. That's what your stupid romanticizing doesn't get. The animal kingdom didn't get together and decode, "okay, leapord #378, you get these two acres here, and leapord #379, you get those two acres..."
Leapord has to fight and struggle every day to cling to his acres and eventually he'll get to old or sick and someone will kill him and take it from him.
This is such a ridiculous conversation to be having with anyone over the age of 12. The world is not a Disney movie. Animals in the wild live short, brutal lives.
You obviously didn't understand a goddamn word of what I wrote if you think I'm romanticizing anything. I'll cop to not explaining well, but you're still an asshole putting words in my mouth. Nowhere did I suggest an animal doesn't have to defend its territory. Allow me to clarify.
First, there are no animal billionaires. An animal can't force thousands of other animals into starvation because it controls a thousand times more territory than it needs.
Second, there is no inheritance. You don't see situations like we have now where property stays in a single family for generation after generations. THAT is what I meant by "up for grabs", not some Disney movie animals living in harmony shit. Animals compete for territory all the time, but they at least don't have to worry about old, sick or dead animals controlling all the territory. Each new generation of animals starts from the same place as the ones before it rather than starting out way behind the offspring of a small minority of the previous generation.
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
Literally every living organism must work to live. It's called surviving. This is just wrong lol.
We're the only animal that works for the benefit of other animals, with the exception of ants and bees. No other animal is out there is working to raise profits for shareholders ffs. They only work to keep themselves alive, for their own benefit.
Not that this is what the post was about, but whatever.
Have you ever thought about how we're the only animal that works for the benefit of other animals, with the exception of ants and bees? All other animals only work to keep themselves alive, not to create profit for shareholders.
Not that this is even what the post was about in the first place, but whatever.
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.
Does that mean you think it would work in other countries?
They're already doing that, so we may as well try something different.
He's wrong, though... It's pretty easy to exist 100% for free.
