Gerald W. Johnson, a journalist who covered The New Deal during the 30’s for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that what angry poor people want is never usually money (or else they would have revolted a long time ago), but hope for a better future for either them or their children. Eric Hoffer, who wrote a book in the 50’s called “True Believer: On The Nature of Mass Movements”, had a similar argument.
Perhaps UBI on its own is not sufficient to give hope for a better future, but combined with affordable education maybe it would be?
I imagine if one could take some time off without fear of starvation (or going massively into debt) to raise one's skills, then upward mobility would be much more accessible. I don't know if UBI is the only solution but I can see how it would at least solve part of the problem.
I'm too young to have experienced it myself but my understanding is that there was a time when people could actually survive off jobs which didn't require a college degree. I don't think this is possible in most places anymore and given that college tuition has only increased, it seems like upward mobility has decreased.
I realize that college isn't necessarily the right path to upward mobility but I think you can generalize the argument to most forms of education and it would still apply.
My grandparents enjoyed home ownership in a very nice neighborhood, in what is now an extremely high COL area. They had every modern convenience of their time period, sent their kids to college, and retired on-time without a care. Neither attended high school. It's often stated that the post-WWII era was just a fluke. I don't know enough to have an opinion about that, but it sure did lead to the perception that the American Dream evaporated for most people.
More affordable education would be nice. Certainly not free for everyone, like Bernie proposed. Not everyone needs college and there are definitely some degrees that the state shouldn't pay for.
The arts are valuable and I'd love to have a country which could patronize the arts and artists. But we don't have that kind of money. Even if we did, there are other priorities for things we should be paying people to do.
In any case, the one argument for UBI I found somewhat convincing was that it could be cheaper than social security, unemployment, etc all combined, because there'd be less administrative cost.
I appreciate that some governments were willing to experiment.
Change can be good, but tests ought to be tried before large , even well-intentioned changes to massive systems.
Yeah, I generally agree. I think one thing that is often forgotten/only mentioned in comments is trade schools. A good education in a trade can bring about a good income. Due to the lack of people joining the trades as university has been in vogue.
Some amount of military is good. I will not deny ours is quite large. Perhaps having the largest is also a good. But so much larger than everyone else's? I don't know. But that's not really the tradeoff I meant.
In the space of just social programs, or societal improvement programs, I'd love to see more national parks, environmental cleanup, scientific research funding, etc. There are people who are willing but unable to do work in these areas. The US provides a pretty good amount of money in these areas, even as I desire more.
tl;dr if you're a US citizen, vote for people who'll spend how you want them to spend. If you're not, oh well, it's not your decision
Comments
Perhaps UBI on its own is not sufficient to give hope for a better future, but combined with affordable education maybe it would be?
I imagine if one could take some time off without fear of starvation (or going massively into debt) to raise one's skills, then upward mobility would be much more accessible. I don't know if UBI is the only solution but I can see how it would at least solve part of the problem.
I'm too young to have experienced it myself but my understanding is that there was a time when people could actually survive off jobs which didn't require a college degree. I don't think this is possible in most places anymore and given that college tuition has only increased, it seems like upward mobility has decreased.
I realize that college isn't necessarily the right path to upward mobility but I think you can generalize the argument to most forms of education and it would still apply.
My grandparents enjoyed home ownership in a very nice neighborhood, in what is now an extremely high COL area. They had every modern convenience of their time period, sent their kids to college, and retired on-time without a care. Neither attended high school. It's often stated that the post-WWII era was just a fluke. I don't know enough to have an opinion about that, but it sure did lead to the perception that the American Dream evaporated for most people.
More affordable education would be nice. Certainly not free for everyone, like Bernie proposed. Not everyone needs college and there are definitely some degrees that the state shouldn't pay for.
The arts are valuable and I'd love to have a country which could patronize the arts and artists. But we don't have that kind of money. Even if we did, there are other priorities for things we should be paying people to do.
In any case, the one argument for UBI I found somewhat convincing was that it could be cheaper than social security, unemployment, etc all combined, because there'd be less administrative cost.
I appreciate that some governments were willing to experiment.
Change can be good, but tests ought to be tried before large , even well-intentioned changes to massive systems.
Yeah, I generally agree. I think one thing that is often forgotten/only mentioned in comments is trade schools. A good education in a trade can bring about a good income. Due to the lack of people joining the trades as university has been in vogue.
The solution to that is universities should start teaching trades or trade schools should rebrand as universities and offer degrees.
But we don't have that kind of money.
You have the money to patronise the military-industrial complex, I think you could easily afford to patronise the arts more if that was your priority.
Some amount of military is good. I will not deny ours is quite large. Perhaps having the largest is also a good. But so much larger than everyone else's? I don't know. But that's not really the tradeoff I meant.
In the space of just social programs, or societal improvement programs, I'd love to see more national parks, environmental cleanup, scientific research funding, etc. There are people who are willing but unable to do work in these areas. The US provides a pretty good amount of money in these areas, even as I desire more.
tl;dr if you're a US citizen, vote for people who'll spend how you want them to spend. If you're not, oh well, it's not your decision