[cladopa]

It seems people forget the most obvious thing: A government powerful enough to give everybody a salary is powerful enough to REMOVE everybody's salary. It is also a monopoly of power.

That already happened: In communist Russia if you were not a good communist (you believed communism was a crap system) it meant no salary for you, a shitty status or being sent to prison or forced labor. If your children, or any family member or your friends were not good communists, you were punished as well.

UBI means taxes need to be confiscatory for those that work. Studies are done giving people free money but not about removing the fruit of their labor.

And of course the people who controls people's salaries are going to redirect most of it to themselves, like communists or socialists always do in socialists places. Lenin redirected billions of dollars to private accounts in Switzerland, Stalin forced its repatriation and later hundreds of billions disappeared. It has been the playbook of any communist leader, from Castro to Chavez or any socialist leader, Lula, Kirchner.

[owisd]

When you take away the government's monopoly on power you get what subsequently happened in Russia, a handful of oligarchs who have all the power instead.

[inglor_cz]

Power != force, and Western governments certainly don't have a monopoly on power.

[oneeyedpigeon]

> UBI means taxes need to be confiscatory for those that work

Can you explain what you mean by "confiscatory" and how it differs from normal income tax?

[swed420]

This comment suggests your views are heavily biased by capital owned/controlled western media.

Here's a different take, with modern China as an example:

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/07/24/chinas-thi...

[AnimalMuppet]

Your answer to "capitalist owned/controlled western media" is China's third plenum? You think that's going to be less biased?

[swed420]

It links to a blog post about China's third plenum and gives examples of western media's bias in relation to it. At least that's a dialog instead of the single sided take you offered originally.

[codr7]

Exactly, the list of conditions to keep what is now your only available source of income happy will keep growing.

Hesitant about the latest gene therapy, no money for you.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

The government can already tell you to do things.

[codr7]

Of course, but they don't have the same means to force me.

Look, I think taking care of everyone is a great idea, about time too.

But giving centralized government even more power is likely a very, very bad idea.