Universal Basic Enslavement

in #news6 years ago


by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
July 21, 2018

TANSTAAFL.

As you may or may not know, depending on how much anarchist sci-fi literature you consume, "TANSTAAFL" is an acronym meaning "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." But while TANSTAAFL may have been popularized by Robert Heinlein in his 1996 classic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, at base it's just a reformulation of the age-old historical wisdom that nothing advertised as "free" is ever really free. As anyone ever suckered into a high-pressure timeshare pitch on the basis of a "free weekend getaway" offer will know, there is always a hidden cost to any "free" item.

So when one particular "free lunch" idea is being pimped by a rogue's gallery of tyrants and billionaires—from Nobel Warmonger Barack Obama to rabid eugenicist Bill Gates to Facebook founder Mark Zucker-borg to serial scammer Elon Musk—you might want to ask yourself what the real cost of this manna from heaven is.

And which "free lunch" idea am I referring to, exactly? Why, universal basic income (UBI), of course.

For the few people reading this who've never heard of UBI, it refers to a program in which every* citizen receives a periodic payment from the government with no strings attached* (*more on these asterisks in a moment). The idea is promoted by organizations like the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) as a means of promoting "liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses, husbands and bureaucrats."

In other words: Free lunch is served, everybody!

Although the idea of a UBI has been around for decades, it never really caught on until everyone began fearing that the rise of the robots and the automation of everything will leave masses of people unemployed and angry. Now it's the hottest discussion topic for technocrats and tyrants of all stripes, from the literal transhumanists of Futurism.com to the pampered plutocrats at the World Economic Forum. And as BIEN and their like-minded basic income proponents will tell you, it's not just an idea. Universal basic income programs are already being trialed all around the globe!

. . . Well, OK, not universal basic income. That's still not being trialed. But small-scale studies involving thousands of people are being done in Finland, Canada, Kenya, Brazil. A UBI-type program is now even being proposed in Chicago (with Obomber's blessing, of course).

But perhaps you are a tad incredulous that a government program to "unconditionally" rain helicopter money down on everyone will really solve poverty or end unemployment. If so, then give yourself a cookie. The proposal is a scam on every level, one being proposed by economic illiterates who truly believe they have found the secret to poverty eradication hiding out in plain sight. "Just give everybody free money!" Oh, of course! Why didn't I think of that?

Now you might think that there is some nuance here that is being missed. "Come on, James," you rejoin. "Surely the UBI advocates aren't arguing that giving everybody in the US $12,000 a year will raise everyone to the federal poverty line and thus eradicate poverty, are they? I mean, they know about inflation, right?"

No, you don't understand. That's exactly what they're arguing. Go on, listen. This is literally the same level of economic understanding that I had when I used to discuss these ideas with my friends in elementary school. I mean, really, if giving everybody $12,000 a year would end poverty, why stop there? Give everybody $1,000,000 a year and everyone will be a millionaire! Awesome!

But this is not an economic argument. If it were simply a case of some well-meaning but mathematically challenged do-gooders trying to end poverty with magical money from the government printing press, that would be one thing. But it is much worse than that. It is yet another case where the eugenicists and technocrats are using the good intentions and naïveté of the masses to forge the next link in the chain that binds the people to the powers-that-shouldn't-be.

Remember those asterisks in the UBI description above: "every* citizen receives a periodic payment from the government with no strings attached*." Let's interrogate those propositions, shall we?

Will every citizen receive this payment? Yes, absolutely . . . I mean, as long as they have a bank account that the government can deposit funds into, obviously. And who doesn't have a bank account these days?

Oh, how about the vast majority of the poorest people on the planet? Well then they'll just have to get banked! And to help that process along, why not create a government program to mandate biometric identification for every citizen in the country that can then be tied directly to their bank account and taxation records?

Sound far-fetched? It's already been done. It's called India's Aadhaar program, and it has enrolled 1.2 billion Indian residents in the world's largest biometric database (with only a couple of minor hiccups along the way). When discussing the UBI idea from the Indian perspective at Davos last year, Amitabh Kant—the CEO of the Indian government's main policy think tank—actually bragged that Aadhaar would make Indian implementation of UBI a snap. Now if only the rest of the developing world would catch up and get their citizens biometrically scanned and databased we could get them out of poverty, too!

Which brings us to that other asterisk. You know, the "no strings attached" claim. The idea would be that everyone receives the payment automatically. No forms to fill out, no hoops to jump through, no bureaucracy, no exceptions.

. . . Except. Well, I mean there may be an exception here and there, right? You wouldn't want to give a UBI to a criminal, would you? Or a terrorist. Or someone who might potentially use the funds to undermine the state.

Think of how UBI might be implemented in China, for example. A country where a growing biometric control grid is feeding into an already sprawling surveillance state. A country where every citizen receives a social credit score to reward "good citizenship" and where that score is already being used to determine whether someone should be allowed to travel on trains or planes in the glorious socialist paradise of the People's Republic. Do you think it just might be possible that President-For-Life Xi and his ChiCom cronies might tie a "guaranteed" government income to the social credit score, too? Is it within the realm of possibility that those who fail to genuflect to the party flag might be flagged for political wrongthink and left off the roles of a Chinese UBI?

"But that's communist China, James. Such a thing wouldn't happen in the land of the free!"

Oh really? Then why are the participants in the World Economic Forum's UBI discussion all talking about tying the program to "civic responsibilities" like national service and mandatory vaccination and compulsory voting? What happens to those poor comrades who don't wish to worship at the feet of their government or legitimize the state in the charade of voting? Will we, too, be left out of this glorious socialist experiment? (Spoiler: Yes. Yes, we will.)

This is the logic of the "free" lunch. It's completely and totally free! . . . As long as you're willing to pay.

UBI proponents will pretend that anyone who disbelieves their fairy tale is in favor of the status quo or is a heartless libertarian monster who wants poor people to die (so why were Hayek and Friedman both for forms of guaranteed government income?). This is a strawman.

Poverty and unemployment are obviously real problems, but the roots of these problems are not a lack of bank-created, debt-based "money" being sloshed into people's electronic bank accounts each month and these problems will not be solved by magic government printing press pixie dust. They are caused by an erosion of the non-governmental civil institutions that once provided for the poor and sick within the community and the rise of the cradle-to-grave welfare state mentality where only the government can help the poor. They are caused by the banksters who create the debt treadmill that undergirds the monetary system itself, the politicians who foster public dependence on the state, the corporate cronies who weaken the public in order to sell their snake oil "remedies" to the poor and downtrodden, the technocrats who are all too happy to administer the system for their paymasters, and the kind-hearted naifs who believe that more government is the answer to the problems that more government has caused.

And the answer? The only true answer lies in us. As it always has and always will. And it involves turning away from the phoney-baloney monetary system that has been engineered around us, the technocrats that administer it, and the political puppets that run the show for their bankster string-pullers.

Sadly, that is not an easy task. It will require the painstaking labor of generations of dedicated, concerned individuals to build up the viable alternatives to the status quo, just as the erection of this bankster-ruled oligarchical nightmare took generations to put in place. And in that time, many will be lured away by the siren call of the hucksters offering their quick and easy fix of free money from on high.

But at least now when people go around ringing the lunch bell and assuring you it won't cost you a dime, you'll know exactly what to retort: TANSTAAFL!

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the alternative, almost no government whatsoever and a real free market (includes: how the roads will get built, and much more.)

Awesome! I watched the one from several years back, but this lecture is from a couple of days ago. Definitely worth watching again!

In the near future it is only possible to use this UBI with your own micro chip in your hand or head. No thanks!

When the layers of unloving control are removed from the natural abundance of this planet, the natural universal 'income' will be clearly available for all - in the form of the universe itself. Currently we are born wrapped in a cloud of ill-logic that says we must work for someone else to get what was intended to be freely available. There is no way around it, ditching the enslavement system is the only way to be wealthy for the majority and that means understanding now that the enslavement system called 'the economy' is, in fact, a way to reduce your wealth - unless you happen to spend a lot of time studying it and working out its weak points. We are not meant to be born into a covert siege - the time has come to stop giving away our power!

If 'the economy' is what enslaves us, which solution would you propose, if you don't mind me asking?

You don't have a very solid understanding of UBI. I don't disagree that the way we create money currently is nonsensical, but your aversion to UBI is based on a lack of knowledge.

For example, you listed inflation as a major barrier, which shows you don't understand UBI as a transfer of existing money, and not an inflationary model of monetary expansion. Yes, everyone receives UBI, but everyone pays for it too, so it's not at all a "free lunch", it's just a lunch that people pay different amounts for depending on their level of income and wealth.

It's helpful to think of UBI as a fully refundable tax credit paid for by the elimination of many welfare programs and also many existing tax credits. We can simplify what we're already doing in a way that makes more sense, reduces the size of government, and improves outcomes.

A lack of money is a big problem. It's expensive. It leads to sickness and crime. It distorts markets. It prevents entrepreneurship. It also reduces the customer base which is bad for businesses.

I really suggest looking into it more, and questioning what you think you know, because what you know is severely lacking when it comes to UBI.

https://medium.com/basic-income/if-you-think-basic-income-is-free-money-or-socialism-think-again-4a17e8d15b1

I did mean to say The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a "1966 classic," of course, not 1999. Just a typo.

You can edit your post until 7 days on Steem....no editable after. Just a FYI.

Also, check out my latest news synopsis for last week here. Thanks in advance for your time and attention.

i love how the people rally around the slightest hint of change yet when push comes to shove only a fraction of a single percent of those who first rallied would actually stand up and be counted for change....

face the facts folks... the entire planet is enslaved and will remain that way

I think crypto will help break people free of the phoney money system that is the petro dollar.

alas, crypto is also the rulers' invention (no such person as satoshi, it was the nsa,) and is simply the ultimate digital form of fiat currency.

Crypto is just the newest phony money system. What happens when all the Bitcoin (for example) is "mined" and there are no new coins? What keeps the existing infrastructure running when there's no more funds to pay for it, as the miners are the network and when the coins stop being mined there's no more incentive for them to run their machines.

The only money is a commodity that's been used as money for thousands of years - silver & gold. The problem we all have is with "currency" which isn't "money".

Ask yourself why the US has the Dollar and the Swiss have the Franc. Why do these artificial entities exist when the entire world can use independently minted coins with a face value denominated in grams. Then all products and services world wide could be priced in grams also; no gov't involvement whatsoever. A product could be priced at 30:18:0 meaning 30 grams of gold, 18 of silver and none of copper. This gets rid of "reserve currencies", exchange rates, arbitrage and all the evils we now have in the bankster system.

Even though the idea of every citizen of the world having UBI is a great idea, there will always be opportunists like the greedy bankers backed by corrupt government officials ready to exploit the system.The only way it works is if every transaction is transparent and available to the public for scrutiny or else it will never work.

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How exactly is world socialism a good idea? Markets are what lifted us out of poverty in the West and if you want to walk that same path to prosperity you need to embrace property rights and voluntarism. What is so difficult about this?

the antidote to your clouded socialist thinking. you DO want less government don't you?

@corbettreport, In the world of Centralisation, what we think or name as Good is Bad in my opinion. And many times people need help from the government but they will not give that, but they will provide those facilities or products which they don't need but these inturn benefits few super rich or elite people.

And the most importantly, in my opinion every government is run by Few people and most common strategy applied is Divide and Rule. They create panic situations at every place so that people can trust governments and inturn people made slaves of government with manipulative games for sure.

Fake News and Propaganda News are real issue in current phase of time in my opinion. The real facts are stayed hidden, and unrelated and misleading information showcased to the people to misguide them and to keep common people away from the truth.

Most of the people only believe what they read or watch on the NEWS and we all know that the point of Corruption is increased to the next levels and every field is compromised in my opinion.

Wishing you an great day and stay blessed. 🙂

UBI must come from the blockchain, not from a state.