i like the clear way the arguments for and against are laid out in this post. a thought: the majority of citizens are both producers and consumers. if citizens don't have the means of purchasing goods, then demand reduces and production has to be reduced. this can lead to economic collapse as happened in 1929. it was thought by classical economists that labour would price itself back into the market during a time of high unemployment but, during the time lag needed for that to happen, greatly reduced demand led to further unemployment and a catastrophic downward spiral. (this because unemployed workers had little to spend.) subsequently there was far more welfare made available to workers during down-turns in the economy - not out of the goodness of the capitalists' heart but because the lesson of the necessity of demand had been learned. now that automation looks like both destroying jobs and potentialy producing a cornucopia of goods, as most economists believe, it will all collapse pretty quickly without demand for the goods i.e. widespread purchasing power decoupled from having a job. UBI might well be a necessity.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from: