"If there’s a robust public healthcare and UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down."
This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses.
A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream.
"have nothing to lose and decide to attack the source of their misery. Bread and circuses will only distract so much."
"If instead we stick our head in the sand and ignore the human cost so that we can temporarily enjoy maximum technological progress AND maximum wealth accumulation for shareholders, as we have been doing for the better part of a century, things will slowly break down and eventually collapse when the pace of change accelerates to the point that enough people simply can’t keep up, have nothing to lose and decide to attack the source of their misery. Bread and circuses will only distract so much."
I suppose the people that are actually working will just need to get more guns.
So I’ve gotten this retort (i.e. threat of starvation being the only valid motivator) from a few folks in person as well, and I always feel like it’s them telling on themselves more than the truism it’s presented as.
Most of my friends are in some form of tech or creative work, so perhaps that is my bias, but with the threat of destitution removed the vast majority of people I know would turn into maelstroms of creation: art, crafts, coding, building, organizing, civic participation, scientific experimentation, and raising strong families.
Instead they are trapped spending the majority of their time navigating corporate politics to deliver a fraction of their value to society. Seems… dangerously inefficient and corrosive to the human spirit, no?
> A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream.
That "pipe dream" has already been achieved by most EU countries decades ago. Sure, you might argue it's worse in quality than American healthcare and that wait times are horrible, but I guarantee you most Americans would see it as an improvement over their current situation.
The American system existing is a travesty both because of the struggles it gives Americans but also because it's used as a comparison to make the European systems look good. The NHS in the UK is an expensive bureaucratic nightmare and doesn't come anywhere near to performing as it should (for instance a recent government boasted cutting the waiting list by a high number, but they accomplished it by removing people that had been waiting for too long). It costs a lot of tax but any criticism of it generally gets met with "would you prefer the US system?" as though it's the only other option.
I live in Eastern Europe now where they also have free health care, and it's so bad that almost everyone pays for private medical insurance - essentially we pay twice because the first system is mostly not fit for purpose.
To compare the US and UK: In the US, the life expectancy is 76.5 years for males and 81.4 years for females. Annual healthcare spending is $14,885 per capita. In the UK, the life expectancy is 79.1 years for males and 83.0 years for females. Annual healthcare spending is $6,747 per capita. Even if the UK system is bad, it seems like the US system is much worse if they pay more than twice as much for poorer outcomes.
I think you have to account for multiple factors like Americans are generally unhealthy people, the people have better access to the top of the line medical technology, people actually spend and consume more compared to the EU. This blog post explains a lot more.
https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o...
“This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses.”
Are there historical or contemporary examples of this? I googled but couldn’t find any specifics.
The reason I ask is that I in the US, employer-provided health insurance is a large expense for businesses. And anecdotally, I’ve never spoken to any US small business owner that feels that choosing employee insurance plans is a real competitive advantage. But perhaps the historical/contemporary alternatives are worse?
I mean we've got multiple generational families that have been living on council estates all their lives and raising the next generation to do the same at the same time the NHS is collapsing all around, so there's that example.
Do you have any citations, or just your assertions that this happens?
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Tax payers don't fund governments, governments fund tax payers. Taxes are there to encourage certain economic activities and discourage others.
Today, many of those activities are either toxic, like fossil fuel subsidies, or useless, like casino stock markets which force everyone to play PR con games that are divorced from bedrock physical fundamentals - like clean water, a safe food supply, and a stable climate.
Guns won't help anyone when farming dies.
Not for long, anyway.
I think taxes predates that by a lot and probably had more to do with feeding management.
Money and trade as we know it today was invented by the Romans because soldiers were raiding their own villages for supplies. Paying soldiers with coins then demanding them back from villagers got them to start trading. That’s where incentives started.
>I suppose the people that are actually working will just need to get more guns.
If shit gets as bad as people are hoping it will get, workers aren't going to be in the "gets things" class anymore.
> A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream.
Oh yes, the usual argument of how what most industrializes nations (and many poor nations as well) have achieved, is somehow seen as impossible just because the US can't manage to do it (because it doesn't profit the oligarchs).