(03-15-2021, 05:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: The rate at which this is amassing wealth for the few and penury to many -- all that in the world's wealthiest nation -- shows how quickly we can revert to something akin to Feudalism. We can control this, but it requires the will to oppose the richest and most powerful among us.[*]
[*]Paranoia and Conspiracy. With the arrival of Deep Fakes, the ability of large numbers of otherwise rational people to fall through a rathole just got bigger. Since this is not limited to the US, I may have to move this up the list in the future.
The amusing thing here is that billionaires, who tilt towards an American liberal worldview owing to their breadth of exposure to the world and class interest, generally agree, which is why e.g. Richard Branson (Former CEO of Virgin Records), Elon Musk and others endorse things like UBI. High inequality tends to create a threatening proletariat. More, a UBI would justify stripping the other elements of the social safety net.
But their proposed solutions solve nothing long term. A UBI would generate liquidity short term, but is entirely dependent on taxation to fund. Insofar as those receiving such a subsidy would no longer pay taxes, the onus then would be on the haute-bourgeoisie to fund this programme. But they suffer the most from the effects of the declining rate of profit. A UBI-sustained capitalism might last a generation or two before the entire thing fell apart. It can, at best, buy the capitalists time to ride little Elon's rocket ship to Mars.