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Title: Universal Basic Income
Author: Michael Stauch
Date: 2016
Language: en
Topics: universal basic income, capitalism, The Utopian
Source: Retrieved on 10th August 2021 from http://utopianmag.com/archives/tag-The%20Utopian%20Vol.%2015.2%20-%202016/
Notes: Published in The Utopian Vol. 15.2.

Michael Stauch

Universal Basic Income

I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been having recently about the idea

of a “Universal Basic Income” or UBI that has become an important topic

of discussion in the US recently.

This January, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm called Y

Combinator issued a “Request for Research” to explore the idea of a

guaranteed income. [1] In the proposal, the firm requests applications

from researchers interested in examining what happens when you give a

set of people a basic income for a five-year period. The underlying

assumption is that they want to know if people will blow free money on

heroin, basically.

Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator and its “philosopher king”

according to the Awl, summarized his interest in the problem of income

inequality in an essay called “Economic Inequality”: “when I hear people

saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel

rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters.”

[2] After facing criticism for saying this, Graham removed this language

in an updated version of the text. [3] The essay is a gripping read.

Graham begins by acknowledging himself as a “manufacturer of income

inequality” and “an expert on how to increase income inequality.” Graham

strikes me as an important, articulate figure explaining how

contemporary robber barons in the early 21^(st) century understand the

capitalist system.

So UBI is an idea that’s floating around and it’s no surprise that it’s

coming from an economic sector, venture capitalists, who make money by

investing in companies which are exploring ways to eliminate jobs on an

enormous scale. The idea is emerging at the outset of what bourgeois

economists are calling “Industry 4.0.” [4] This fourth industrial

revolution (after mechanization, water/steam power; mass production, the

assembly line, and electricity, and computers and automation) will

involve cyber-physical systems, the “Internet of things” and cloud

computing, according to its contemporary prophets. But in addition to

the enormous profits capitalists hope to make from this transformation

in the foundations of the contemporary economy, they are also

recognizing the political problems it might produce, in particular the

very real possibility of substantial increases in unemployment as new

technology enables companies to eliminate jobs once previously

considered untouchable.

Truck driving is an important example of how this transformation might

take place. Auto companies, as I’m sure everyone knows, are actively

pursuing partnerships with Silicon Valley in order to bring computers

into cars. In spite of all evidence of the problems of global warming

from carbon-based fuel consumption, these companies are actively

pursuing self-driving cars. [5][6][7][8]

The problem with this technology, which relates to truck driving, is

that driverless technology is actually extremely expensive. Recently, a

company called Otto launched with a view toward migrating the technology

for driverless cars to trucks. In an interview I heard on the radio, one

of its founders noted the expense associated with driverless technology,

something like $50,000. For a consumer vehicle, such technology would

effectively more than double the cost of a car. But for a semi-truck,

that might only add an additional 33% to a truck that would otherwise

cost $150,000 or so. The article cites the public health risk that

trucks pose — they account for 5.6 percent of miles driven while causing

9.5 percent of the country’s accidents. The article also notes that

driverless technology could allow drivers to nap, allowing the trucks to

stop less frequently. But the article also notes that there are over 4

million trucks on the road, transporting over 70 percent of the

country’s cargo. Let’s face it: there is a real chance that some

ambitious trucking companies will seek to eliminate jobs by implementing

this technology. Even that modification — sleeping and never stopping —

would eliminate jobs. Initially developed as a palliative to long, lone

commutes by individual workers, driverless technology can be almost

seamlessly converted into an engine of massive job loss. [9][10]

So what is at stake with a Universal Basic Income is that capitalists

are recognizing the potential to automate through “Industry 4.0” and

want to pursue it. But they also recognize the enormous social

dislocations automation on this scale would unleash. And, as Graham

says, they would like to not be hunted in the streets and eaten.

The left, as ever, is divided into thousands of competing camps on this

issue. One Jacobin article distinguishes between a “livable basic

income” (LBI) and a “non-livable basic income” (NLBI), arguing that a

UBI would need to be established on a level “high enough to eliminate

the need to work for a wage.” [11] I’m not convinced by this, and it

also seems, in the context of this article, to support the Jacobin’s

interest in reviving not so much a basic income but full employment. The

Endnotes collective has criticized this approach as the “primary

contradiction” of the labor movement, that is, “that the generalization

of one form of domination was seen as the key to overcoming all

domination.” [12] Or, more pithily, “Everyone is being proletarianized,

and so, to achieve communism, we must proletarianize everyone!”

This approach, Endnotes claims, understands the factory “as the

foundation of socialism, not as the material embodiment of abstract

domination.” Endnotes demurs on providing strategic guidelines, however,

and that vacuum ends up being filled by thinkers like Nick Snick and

Alex Williams, authors of Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a

World Without Work and the #Accelerate manifesto. The latter argues for

unleashing “latent productive forces” in technology that a capitalism

economic system holds in check. [13] The manifesto suggests that

technology has no politics, basically, and the authors want to explore

its expansion as a way of creating an alternative to capitalism. I’m not

entirely convinced, however, that this technological accelerationism

won’t ultimately result in a Matrix-style scenario in which the working

class basically functions as batteries fueling a “clean” or

environmental future for a few capitalists.

Anyway, I hope this provides some basis for future discussion on another

important aspect of contemporary transformations in capitalism,

alongside our discussion of the emerging “green” economy.

[1]

blog.ycombinator.com

[2]

theawl.com

[3]

paulgraham.com

;

paulgraham.com

[4]

en.wikipedia.org

[5]

www.freep.com

[6]

fortune.com

[7]

www.seattletimes.com

[8]

www.brookings.edu

[9]

www.cnbc.com

[10]

medium.com

[11]

www.jacobinmag.com

[12]

endnotes.org.uk

[13]

criticallegalthinking.com