Comment on Social Security can be saved. Scrap the cap!

• boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Well, no.

  You could lower it for sure, but the thing is, if everyone’s retired and nobody’s working, there’s no productivity, meaning there’s either no money, or money is meaningless

  It could certainly be reduced by a pretty good number of years though. Enough that you start your retirement when your body and your mind is still “all there”, you get to enjoy it.

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  • Vandals_handle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Millions of people work for free every day, we call them volunteers. Many of our institutions including hospitals, parks, schools, sports leagues, museums, food banks, community theaters and zoos depend on volunteer staffing to run their programs.

    When I hear someone say no one will work if they aren’t paid, I hear projection.

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    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Nobody should work for free, that’s exploitation. UBI should provide basic assistance, and then people should be free to do what they want with their free time. Many, like myself, would pursue artistic goals, but many would still want to work and earn more money, and that’s okay, too. Even artists may want to sell their work.

      The point is that nobody HAS to work for money, but they can if they want to.

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    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      OK but a decent minority of people would complain, no?.. “If someone had to spend over a decade of their life in college and grad school to be a doctor or something, and Joe just started driving a forklift out of high school, should they both be working for free?”

      As in volunteer work is typically general labor, while many things require very deep, specialized knowledge obtained thru years of schooling. Doctors, engineers, economists, etc. Im sure some people would still pursue those things out of sheer love. But I imagine for some people the potential of earning more is that extra motivation that pushes them down that path.

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      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        The “volunteer” comment was rebutting the idea that there would be no productivity in a society where money is irrelevant. UBI is not a replacement of compensation for work.

        Presently, the first ~$16,000 you earn through labor are not gainful. That income provides your basic subsistence. You pretty much have to spend that much just to keep yourself alive in our economy. The remainder of your income is consider “gainful”.

        UBI doesn’t replace compensation for labor. UBI provides that subsistence income. UBI means that every dollar you earn through your own labor is gainful. Your subsistence needs for the week are met before you leave for work on Monday.

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      • Vandals_handle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Doctors Without Borders, legal aid society, Plenty of credentialed professionals volunteer their services as well.

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  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    The thing is, if everyone’s retired and nobody’s working,

    Where do you get the idea that nobody is working with UBI?

    UBI isn’t supposed to be your entire, or even your primary source of income. The most basic concept of UBI is supposed to be enough for a roof over your head, rice and beans in your belly, and that’s about it. It’s supposed to cover the absolute essentials, not your entire lifestyle. It is supposed to remove the desperation of subsistence.

    When a man is drowning, he’ll do anything to survive. When his lungs start filling with water, he’ll drown his wife and kids just for one more breath of air. When a worker is desperate, they will take any work on any exploitative terms that are offered, just to put a meal in their belly. That desperation drags down wages and conditions for everyone. The fundamental purpose of UBI is to ensure that even the most desperate among us aren’t forced into exploitation, and in doing so, drag everyone down with them.

    There is no shortage of labor. We have a massive excess of labor. We have so much labor available that even though everybody currently needs to work, wages are so low that nobody has any money to spend on anything but essentials. The economy is stagnating because everybody is working, but nobody is buying anything.

    UBI is a long-term solution to this untenable situation.

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    • Eheran@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      When people are retired, as per your comment to which he replied, they are not going to work much. You can not call it retirement when people work (roughly) as much as they do now.

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      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        When people are retired, as per your comment to which he replied, they are not going to work much. You can not call it retirement when people work (roughly) as much as they do now.

        Here is the full text of the comment you are referring to:

        Enough to lower the social security age from 67 years to 6-7 weeks gestational age. Remove the cap, include cap gains, and UBI becomes a thing.

        “Retired” was not “per [my] comment” but from the “comment to which he replied”. I didn’t use the word; the other person did.

        I referred to the new, social security system as “UBI”. Universal Basic Income. Also known as a “Citizenship Dividend”. When we remove the caps, and tax capital gains as well as income, the “social security age” is no longer the age at which someone retires, but the age at which they initially join society.

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