,
11 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Looks like Sanders is abandoning all support for UBI and is instead going full JG. Despite his previous responses on multiple occasions, he sees a better answer to automation being more doctors, nurses, teachers, mentors, and every other job, because work is something to worship.
A few thoughts on this: for the same reason Bernie is taking this position, it is all the more imperative to demand and win UBI. We must escape this notion that income should be tied to work. The idea of unlimited jobs is not only bad, it's dangerous as a response to automation.
It's equivalent to raising taxes on the poor and middle classes in order to compensate for the evasion of taxes by the ultra rich. For decades we all should have been paid more for fewer hours of work. Our productivity is higher than ever. Don't demand to work for your enslavers! 
The rich have been grabbing all the gains for themselves, and not in the form of jobs. They aren't working harder. They're just getting a lot more passive income in the form of dividends and interests. Why shouldn't you do the same? You shouldn't work even more for them than now!
These people at the top pushing for a job guarantee are not demanding justice. Of course there is work to do, but why would we not do it just because we have a firm financial foundation upon which to do it? As long as resources are withheld on a work condition, we are not free.
These are the words of Bernie's economist, Kelton: "The lot of the poor can only be improved by programs that put them to work."
These are not the words of an economic freedom fighter. They are the words of an authoritarian slave master. Work more for them for money to live? NO.
These are not the words of an economic freedom fighter. They are the words of an authoritarian slave master. Work more for them for money to live? NO.
We are standing at a crossroads where we can finally decouple income from work and remove the work requirement on life itself. We can regain autonomy over our own lives and as a human right, gain access to what we need to live. A JG doubles down on withholding food to force work.
As @slatestarcodex has written, a job guarantee is the hijacking of utopia. It's also profoundly immoral to withhold access to life-sustaining resources, especially as the rich hoard an increasingly large percentage of access. A right to life demands UBI.
slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/bas…
slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/bas…
The proper response to technology doing more and more of our work for us is not to demand more work! It is to demand more life! Jobs are for machines. Life is for people. Work should be the work we *choose*, with the option not to do them and still exist.
medium.com/basic-income/i…
medium.com/basic-income/i…
I used to include Bernie in ranked polls of who I'd vote for besides @AndrewYang. No longer. As long as he is for JG and against UBI, I can't support him. Workfare is wrong. His poll numbers need to fall as a result of pushing JG as an alternative to UBI.
medium.com/@MattBruenig/v…
medium.com/@MattBruenig/v…
@threadreaderapp unroll
