Thread by @scottsantens

"Officials could coerce them to work... with so-called 'farm policies' where benefits were lowered or cut off during the planting or harvesting seasons to force parents and children as young as 7 into the fields for extremely low wages."

Sound familiar?

cbpp.org/research/famil…

Every governor who canceled the UI boost and extension early just did this same thing. You need to understand that this isn't about getting people to work in general, because people want to find the right work for them, paid or unpaid. It's about forcing people to accept low pay.

It's still too early to tell despite what misinfo media is already lying about, but the data so far is showing that employment has actually gone down a bit in the states that ended their UI early while going up in states that have kept UI going.

arindube.com/2021/07/18/ear…

But even if the data were showing that employment was increasing in the states that pulled UI, it stands to reason that wages would be lower than the states that didn't.

Now ask, is it even good for a state for incomes to go down in it?

Businesses run on discretionary spending.

It's just counterproductive control. Was it good for Black women and their kids to work the fields for cheap to survive in response to conditional benefits being pulled away? Of course not. Was it good for the employers? Not economically.

IT'S ABOUT DOMINATION AND SUBORDINATION.

Unconditional basic income is a democratization of power. By providing everyone more power to say no to low pay, bad work and hours, and abusive employers, UBI reduces subordination. Dominators don't like that and they exist on both sides. Just look at the conditions-loving left.

If we're going to create a higher functioning society, the power to say no and the freedom to say yes are core principles of that society. We need much less domination and much more self-determination and self-actualization. We need to put down our whips.

medium.com/basic-income/t…