[jokoon]

Once you set up a basic income, that is given without conditions, productivity is a bonus, not a requirement. Basic resources like food and shelter are quite abundant in our times.

I have no problem with people being productive, but I'm not okay with productive people imposing their productivity on other less productive people, in the form of social filtering, unemployment, elitism, etc.

The last 100 years have seen amazing increase of productivity thanks to technology, not thanks to methods of resource management.

Climate will exacerbate inequalities, and I think productivity doesn't really matter anymore, since a lot of jobs seem wasteful of resources, yet they are still valued for no good reason. Many people who are high earners often have trouble understanding the meaning of what they do, while other in poverty would appreciate being given a fair access to basic resources, without feeling guilty of not being a productive member of society.

It's funny because Milton Friedman advocated for a basic income, or a negative income tax, so it's quite compatible with capitalist values. The problem is not really capitalism per se, it's more how we value the necessity of effort and mutual help. Rejecting the weak doesn't lead to healthy values.

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is a quote from Marx, but also used by Kennedy.

[zarkov99]

First let me say I too support basic income, so to some degree we are in agreement. What I am really disturbed by is by the resentment I read into your argument. Productive people aren't imposing anything, in fact they are the reason why we can even contemplate something as insane as basic income. All the marvels of the last 100 years are because of productive people and all of us should be immensely grateful to the titans who made it happen. You write about fairness, but there is nothing fair about taking things from people who produce them and giving them, for free, to people who do not. There is compassion, sure, and perhaps in the long run, as most people's economic value trends to 0, we will have no choice, but describing communism as basic fairness is deeply intellectually dishonest.

[jokoon]

> All the marvels of the last 100 years are because of productive people

How so? Those people were paid, why should they be also be thanked on top of what they gained?

The world is unfair by definition.

Why should things not be given for free? That's the premise of the basic income you agreed on.

I never really encouraged for communism either, and never said it would be fair.

[zarkov99]

> Those people were paid, why should they be also be thanked on top of what they gained?

Because there isn't enough money in the history of the world to compensate say the inventors of vaccines. Or electricity. Or the computer. Or the combustion engine.

There is no problem with giving things for free, as long as the giving is voluntary. There is an enormous problem with taking things by force from a group so you can give them to another.

[jokoon]

Those inventors are a fraction of people we would call productive.

Here is a presentation I find insightful on motivation and creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

> There is an enormous problem with taking things by force from a group so you can give them to another.

Are you talking about taxes? Budgets are voted and depend on an elected government. Laws are a form of social contract, I guess. Money is just a medium of exchange, a way to "count sheeps" and reduce waste. In my view it's its only true function. No man is an island. People are free to go elsewhere and create their own country.

Now it's possible to advocate for a form of anarchism (there are many, I guess). Bertrand Russel has criticized anarchism.