UBI ECI: Start Unconditional Basic Incomes (UBI) throughout the EU
Our aim is to establish the introduction of unconditional basic incomes throughout the EU which ensure every person’s material existence and opportunity to participate in society as part of its economic policy.
This is very simple to contribute to. We have to reach a sign up count of 1,000,000 through the europe.
I think it might not be too early to say that this has failed after few months in.
Nearly 150.000 (150 thousands) signs were collected and it is nothing near the needed.
It still has some time, but the signs count is stabilized by now and does not seem to attract any more attention. Massive things should happen in the coming months to even partly show this initiative as having a chance.
I think they should work on their PR, I’ve only seen it here on the forum. Maybe @kublermdk or @bjk can post it on the TZM global FB page?
I personally don’t really support UBI because most people (in NL anyway) won’t need it. Not saying that people don’t deserve a decent live. Just trying to paint the picture that most people their purchasing power will simply increase for no reason. What will people do with that money? Buy the latest iPhone, new car, or an extra car, stuff like that. It will do the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve, which is de-growth.
And then there is the market mechanism, when more money is in circulation, prices rise. A sandwich on the street in Amsterdam could easily cost you 3-6 euros. While in the middle of nowhere this is maybe 2 euros. Still expensive, but that also has to do with the convenience. The purchasing power in the bigger cities are also higher, as a result people are comfortable to raise prices. So in the end, I don’t think the UBI would do much good. Since the market will correct itself by inflating prices. But this is just based on my view on the matter. I have no credible research to back this up.
UBI would help to meet basic needs without a question. It’s basic income, not luxury income. It’s about removing unnecessary complexity, and even more jobs that shouldn’t exist. Equity and removal of pressure on the “left behind” is what it is about. I would have greatly benefited from basic income years ago and even still now, as I’m working on things that do not have immediate return of value due to complex situation in software development industry caused by market economy.
Independent researchers, quality content creators and overall great people would be first to benefit from Basic Income. Who knows, if we had basic income 10 years ago, the TZM would have took off way differently and today we might be already be moving towards overwriting Market Economy with something like NLRBE, world wide, without hindering personalities like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Stefan Molyneux, Alex Jones, Joe Rogan. They would have been already resolved in regards of shortsighness even without Peter’s (Joseph) efforts.
I mean there would be way less frustration and way more things done by people that are actually, right now occupied by involuntary submission to a random temporary job or a realm of a bullshit jobs, that are way less beneficial in a long term for everyone. Maybe we won’t even have this Bitcoin gambling craze that waste global energy and computation resources, reports already show some shortage in electronics components.
I do agree with that, but the thing is that everyone would get this UBI. Most people would use this monthly bonus to buy more things. Or I would expect the market to adapt to this new income standard. And the prices would rise and the same income gap would be introduced soon after.
I personally see more merit in investing that UBI money in lowering the cost of living. Donate solar panels, introduce industrial 3D printing facilities in city centers and free workshops about how to design your own stuff that can be broken down and reused for another project. Introduce vertical farms for local food production. Things like that would likely lower the cost of living. Because basic needs would become more abundant, and thus the prices go down.
And if that “UBI” would stop, the benefits would still be there for maybe years. Because the infrastructure doesn’t disappear that easily, we also see that with financial crises. While if the UBI would stop, the problems would be back in no time. A sustainable infrastructure would be the goal, at least, that’s my take on it. And would also be a more direct step towards an RBE. UBI is just delaying the expiration of this system. And maybe even fast track resource depletion due to more consumption.
I’m probably worst advocate right now for UBI as I’m not into UBI for many months now due to some projects that took over my mind completely. I’ve probably had answers to all the questions presented at one time or another. I can’t remember now anything and didn’t take notes.
Anyways.
Since we live in a market economy the excess of money just means that we might actually finally have some form of weird democratic quality. People donate way more than most expect and you can constantly witness people with excess trying to help other people or donate to organisations and more meaningful things.
Again, it’s not a bonus. It’s a basic income and people won’t stop working, just because their access ability increased. The more people work not for the money, the more meaningful work will appear.
Now the UBI the question of inflation is kind of scary right now as I’m feeling like I don’t know the answer. But I’m pretty sure I did tackle it some time ago with some sanity. It seems that transparency in the food industry and basic things might be some part of weird answer and taxing the largest corporations that are supposedly innovative or create unbearable workplaces, the wealthy that benefit from automation and robotics and not even that.
This answer might be better answered from a better angle by someone else, I wish I had energy and time to note some more important things. Also there are probably many explanations on UBI in relation to inflation on google and actual UBI activists.
Forcing things is never a good thing. You need people that actually care and are interested 24/7 in a thing, and have the skills. That do not care about your temporary luxury toster. Actually if that’s all you care it’s better that you get it, as I really don’t care about, and I just want my toast sometimes. It would be great to have someone with the understanding of toasters at such high and low level, if that’s what your life about, the reader.
As an aside: it is known and shown that the newer generations of people are less consumption based and care about sustainability and that is only getting trendier and trendier than ever. Do I need to find the references or talk about the interactions. I think it is getting obvious, at least in Europe.
The reason I say these things is because when I read about the UBI, people talk about a monthly 500-1000 euro of extra income on top of what someone already earns, regardless of how much that may be. The only outcome I see is more consumption for those who already have a decent income. Which is the majority in NL. More consumption is more resource waste. More quick gains regardless of the long term costs. And I think that indeed the market will adjust to this new income due to inflated prices.
That’s why I often advocate for a sustainable infrastructure that lowers the cost of living. By that standard you don’t have to give more money. People can do more with the money they already have. This sustainable infrastructure can then incrementally be expanded and improved. If the funds stop, the infra is still there. With UBI you would be back at square one if the money flow stops. And it will stop most probably with the next best crisis.
Well that’s probably an average amount of unslaving people.
The isolated UBI experiments shown to have mostly only positive effects.
As far as I’ve red the headlines of the news that way.
I think both are complimentary (UBI and Sustainable Infrastructure funding) and I do agree sustainable infrastructure is way more important than the UBI, but without UBI there will be a lot of unexpected backlash from the society and quality of sustainability and public health would continue dropping. Even with all the side effects of UBI ( that are temporal and required for society to evolve and grow in resistance) UBI is still worth it. UBI alone is just acceleration of consumption, that’s to be seen, personally I just hope it’s temporal and a short spike even if that’s true.
Even if the prices would go up, the positive short effect would still take place. And in-system resolution would rise more awareness. Problems should not be hidden, people should not die silently without basic resources while a few hundreds of people work hired on a sustainable infrastructure country-wide. Even if everyone were hired for sustainable infrastructure, it really just looks like forced labor or anything else. Maybe it’s needed by now, I don’t know.
Sustainable infrastructure should be guided by sustainable people. I think both should be implemented, but an UBI could be a start.
Anyways, just some though instead of writing to Discord, we utilize this forum at least for something, which is great.
For sure, no doubt. But I do wonder which metrics were taken into account. For example in terms of our current economy, more consumption is considered good.
I don’t really see it like that. Those things I listed, the vertical farms, industrial 3D printing facilities and whatnot of course need staff. But these would likely only need a skeleton staff due to the automation. The workshops can also be done online, Khan academy style. With the occasional personal workshop on how to 3D model your furniture. And of course, you can also provide a free library of stuff already designed. But again, just thinking out loud here. None of this is really based on concrete sources. Mostly speaking my mind based on what I’ve read here and there.
True. I think it’s indeed important to underline that UBI is just a patch on a broken system. The solutions it provides only temporarily hide the underlying problem, which is the way we ogranize society today.
Indeed. I would expect more people here, also from Discord. Since Discord is like having amnesia. Everything that’s said is chaotic and forgotten in a day or so. Unless you depend on other people writing things up on another location on the web. Draining energy from the community and clustering the knowledge base. The things I often request there take weeks or even months to complete, and they are small requests that can be done with your eyes closed. I really don’t get it why such a resource draining platform is used, it’s clearly not the best tool for everything…
I’ll write a blog about this initiative this weekend and try to mobilize TZM NL behind it. Our Facebook page has 6000 followers. Not too shabby. But the FB algorithm downgrades it to about 25 followers
Sign up form for UBI | Support UBI
