• Sylocule@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I believe UBI will never come to pass because the rich have too much to lose. Imagine a workforce not beholden to the capitalists?

          • batmangrundies@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Work smart, not hard.

            You have to understand that the housing crisis, in Aus at least is no longer just affecting the most disadvantaged. It’s also affecting middle-aged folks with with defence intelligence backgrounds, as an example.

            Besides, I’m talking about civili disobedience that inconveniences them and reminds them that they share our streets and our infrastructure. And they rely on an army of union workers to keep it all going.

            I’m not talking about rolling out guillotines yet.

            (A lot of what I say should be taken in context, I am Australian, not American).

      • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        If enough people want it, they can overpower the relatively few rich. But most of the people have bought I to the lies of the rich; social media is probably a convenient tool for the rich and powerful to control the opinions of others.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Actually the capitalists have the most incentive to implement UBI. Better paid workers are more likely to turn around and buy the shit they were just making for themselves, and if the rich are not kept away from the megaphone, an improperly done UBI will be made an excuse to strip welfare benefits.

      • trailing9@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        We can have UBI right now if we pledge 10% of our income and pay it voluntarily.

      • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I would love to see regulations define “fair profit.”

        Material costs + labor costs + fair profit = retail price.

        Fair profit cannot be more than X% of retail price.

        • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’d say that fair profit is a ratio of materials+labor costs. Basically a supply chain merchant’s VAT. Find a rate at which a well run shop is able to turn a profit allowing it to hire more workers and expand if successful enough, and cap the “fair profit” at whatever that is as a ratio to labor and material costs.

          Really the worst hit industries will be ones that are particularly prone to brand taxing, and it actually disincentivizes offshoring since cheaping out on labor and regulatory costs correspondingly limits your upper profit margins.

          • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            In the medical device and pharmaceutical industries, this more or less already exists in countries with socialized medicine. It’s not as explicit as my formula, but the price of medications and devices are regulated. Industry needs to demonstrate the actual benefit of a new product over a prior product for the system to pay for it, and the price of the product is then set on the basis of the health economic value it brings.

            Some say it stifles innovation, but honestly, it eliminates the bullshit minor changes that are only made to continue justifying high prices and exclusivity.

            Anyway, I think the “Exodus of industry” argument is an empty threat the shareholder class makes when they feel threatened. A market is a market, and if they want to continue to sell in it, they have to follow the rules, even when they change.

              • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                It’s always externalized exploitation because they’re all multinational corporations.

                It’s true that many of the big players are based in the US, e.g. Pfizer, J&J, Merck, AbbVie, Abbott, EliLily, etc.

                But there are plenty that aren’t:

                • Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, BioNTech, and Merck Group (MilliporeSigma in the US, distinct from Merck & Co) are headquartered in Germany.
                • AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline are in the UK.
                • Roche and Novartis are in Switzerland.
                • Novo Nordisk in Denmark.
                • Sanofi in France.
                • Takeda, Otsuka, and Astellas in Japan.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_biomedical_companies_by_revenue

                It’s important to note that much of the R&D pharma relies on is publicly funded via academic grants in research carried out at universities. It’s not to say that pharma doesn’t also carry out clinical research, which of course does carry a cost, but a lot of the development dollars for a given drug are spent well before they make it into pharma’s hands.

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Companies just need to be kept small, if they can afford to expand then it means they are making too much money

          • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I kinda agree but not too much. National scale industrial companies are a necessity for modern complex products. Keeping companies from going international (or at least beyond multinational bloc scale for places like the EU or Mercosur) is more than fair in my mind.

            • Agent641@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Fast food cartels seem to work ok. Maccas, KFC, Hungry Jacks, Subway, Red Rooster, Chicken Treat, Nandos, Grill’d etc (and I use these examples because the americans will recognize some, but not others which are Australian or Western Australian only) can all coexist while also being statewide, national and/or international franchise chains. None of them can really squash out the others because the customer demands choice, and no one store can reliably deliver all the possible options that consumers seem to want. Sure, they have plenty of other ethical concerns attached, but so far, monopoly seems not to be one of them.

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              You can have an international product without international stores but Windows for example can be an OS but be banned from expanding into software or a cloud company for example. Google can be search engine but not an ad platform. Etc

      • Peddlephile@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Can’t have corporations when suddenly everyone has freedom to choose what they do for work.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Studies have shown that, at least in the states, inflation is basically independent of wage growth.

        Not to mention how being the guy who doesn’t jack up prices will automatically hand you a significant market advantage. In non cartel organized markets every competitor has a prisoner’s dilemma incentivizing them to betray the others if an unspoken price increasing agreement is put into effect.

      • trailing9@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        You need competition. The milk surplus, you want that. Companies should compete and only demand what they need to keep going.

        But if you do that, there is no real owning class. So you need other ways to finance innovation.

      • trailing9@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Same point was made in a reply 13 hours before your comment. If you want an answer you can find it there.