Thread by @scottsantens

I know what the polls say and have said for years. In polls, when asked about universal basic income and a federal job guarantee, FJG comes out on top. The odds were with Bernie to take that route, but I've always felt that route is a loser. People want OTHER people to do those.

When people stop and think about it, especially through a lens of automation, they don't want a guaranteed job. They want income without strings, so they can keep doing what they're doing and have a higher income, or switch to doing something else they prefer as more meaningful.

It was a campaign-killing mistake on Bernie's part to embrace FJG over UBI. He should have done what @AndrewYang is doing, which is convincing people that our slice of the pie is rightfully ours. Yes, it takes work, but once people are convinced of UBI, nothing less will do.

I feel sorry for Bernie, and it actually makes me angry at those like Kelton for helping convince him to stop flirting with UBI and embrace FJG. As Americans, we're not fans of being told what to do by the government in order to live. We value freedom.

UBI is universal freedom.

As work becomes increasingly automated, it simply makes no sense to say let's invent jobs. What makes sense is to recognize that we should all share in the benefits. Our incomes should go up. The length of our work weeks should go down. We should think harder about what is work.

I'll be damned if any work fetishist is going to tell me what kind of work is valuable and what isn't. You have no right to withhold what I need to live only to then dictate to me what I should be doing to earn it. The job market as it exists without UBI is immoral. It's unjust.

It's great that Bernie has re-introduced the idea of economic rights, but economic rights demand UBI. They do not exist as long as resources are withheld on any condition whatsoever. As Paine said, "It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for."

How can you talk about economic rights at the same time as you disagree with the UNCONDITIONAL abolition of poverty? How can you say that giving someone a job so they can prove their right to exist to those with dominion over the Earth is anything but economic injustice?

We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That was the entire point of this thing we call America. If we are to give any breadth of meaning to these ideals, we cannot stand between people and the resources they need to live.

LIFE MUST BE *UNCONDITIONAL*.