[FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

[⛧ glen]

It's not clear to me why my attempt to answer hasn't impacted the way you repeated the question. So I've copied it below. What I outline is a hand wave at a future structure not entirely without money, but with an augmented money.

I think these 5 principles also model the non-moneyed organizations Dave references.

I understand that these answers aren't *complete*. But your repeating your same question without incorporating the attempts to answer it is worriesome.


On May 5, 2021 5:17:00 PM PDT, "uǝlƃ ↙↙↙" <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>Well, there are smarter people than me, who know more about Marxism
>than I do, on this list. But it seems there are ~5 principles to guide
>it:
>
>• civilization is already a cooperative enterprise, it's just a matter
>of cooperation's extent/ubiquity
>• there's nothing supernatural, so all solutions have to be built on
>science
>• innovation, technology, culture, etc. are limited only by nature; so
>in principle the things we build (including governments) can be as big
>and complex as the natural world
>• class is a cultural construct; we create it; hence we can eliminate
>it
>• the spectral signature of organization sizes is present in nature and
>should be mirrored in society (e.g. power laws for org sizes, small
>world networks, etc)
>
>None of this implies the elimination of money. Reduction to a single
>dimension is just fine *when* it works. But when it doesn't work, it
>has to be "fleshed out" with other structure. Contracts are such a
>structure. We use contracts all the time to flesh out our money-based
>transactions. And contracts need not be simply pairwise (as Pieter
>seemed to imply with his conception of a free market). Contracts can be
>between any number of groups or individuals ... they nest.
>
>The trick is with the legal system and spatiotemporal extension. When
>the lawyers draw up a contract and the courts judge an alleged breach,
>there's spatial extent that we can't codify (unintended consequences,
>externalities). And do contracts have higher order effects (extend to
>descendants, siblings, business partners, etc.)? Designing a legal
>system to align with the 5 basic principles above would, I think,
>produce something very unlike capitalism ... but maybe not whatever it
>is the Marxists imagine would emerge.
>
>I'm sure the above is too vague. But it's the best I can do. As I tried
>to make clear *I* have no idea what could replace capitalism. I don't
>even understand socialism. Smarter people than me would have to work it
>out.
>

On May 7, 2021 10:43:35 PM PDT, Russ Abbott <russ.abbott at gmail.com> wrote:
>Further illustration of my ignorance in these areas.
>
>This discussion originated with the idea that we are oppressed by
>capitalism and money. My question still is, what is the (or at least
>*our*)
>alternative? Can you imagine converting our society into one without
>money?
>What could it possibly look like? Simply saying, *replace our culture
>with
>that of the Incas* doesn't help me to see any real alternative to where
>we
>are -- or a viable path from here to a non-monetary world.
>
>-- Russ Abbott
>Professor, Computer Science
>California State University, Los Angeles
>
>

-- 
glen ⛧