@digital*ghost wrote:
@dazzledayz wrote:
So, to conclude, how the hell do we legislate for the above morality in Free Market Capitalism?
Maybe Digi is on the money with a UBI?
Maybe the Nordic countries are on the money by just being ethical?
I'm actually not entirely convinced UBI is the answer, at least not without first addressing / mitigating some other issues first - such as housing / rent costs (we all know what happens when the governement says stuff like 'hey, we'll grant you $X so you can afford Y" - the people who sell Y go "great! now you can afford to pay $Z + $X!").
SpoilerJust on that topic, and to tie in with chameleon's post as well, I was on a Centrelink payment some years back, and it included rent assistance. I recall receiving a letter from them a couple of times that said "due to an increase in the cost of living, the amount of rent you must pay before you qualify for rent assistance has increased" - in a nutshell, they were letters advising me of a decrease in rent assistance (and therefore overall payment amount), because the cost of living increased. If that isn't a perfect example of Australian bureaucratic logic, I dunno what is.
But, at the same time, part of the reason the idea is gaining traction is because of the rapid decline of job availability (increasing population, working longer until retirement, and the big one, automation), so a UBI would guarantee (at least somewhat) the stability of society if we reach a point where work isn't actually an option for some people, and it would at least keep capitalism limping along in such a society if we can't think of anything better, because everyone (no matter what) would essentially become consumers, passive or otherwise.
I shudder at that bureaucratese Digi; it could be straight out of Joseph Heller or Franz Kafka!
The idea of a UBI is being played with in a few places abroad and, as you point out, may be necessary in the face of rapidly advancing automation in the workplace.
If workers are all mostly lowly paid casuals or giggers there's a need to sustain the overall economy growthwise.
There is a place for govt to step in and moderate the system somehow as the Corporates just will not do it themselves.
They'll suffer too if the market for their goods and services shrinks to the point where products become unaffordable but by the time that becomes apparent to them it may well be too late.
Power producers are already seeing the trend towards solar impacting their profitability and that is largely due to the way they've rorted the system themselves.
Anyone able to is doing all they can to cut their power bills or go totally off grid.
New car sales are in rapid decline and the housing bubble seems to be contracting steadily.
Supermarkets are at war with their suppliers.
As Chameleon's post points out, the repo game is about the only one going gangbusters ATM.
I do see that the Nordic countries appear to be toddling along reasonably well and have been for quite some time.
They take a quite different view of economic management and tend to be high taxing but do offer very generous social benefits.
They also take a very different view to resources income management.
I don't believe we can tax-cut our way out of economic strife, much as Scomo and his mates would like us to think so.
Until the benefits of GDP are much more evenly shared we'll always be wobbling along on the brink.
