It's Midnight In America

It's midnight in America, and the sun may never rise again.

Well, it's official.  Trump won the 2024 presidential election.  Again.  And this time, we can't blame it on the Electoral College or Russian interference or anything other than We the People.  Or rather, about half of us.  

Only this time around, literally everyone knew what he was all about, and yet so many still voted for him.  So literally NO ONE can credibly claim naivety or ignorance (unless truly willful) this time.  They had an easy out, and yet they chose to go right back to Trump.  They are NOT victims, they are volunteers, often very eager ones, which makes them complicit with the oppressors.  In fact, in the two weeks leading up to Election Day, Trump deliberately darkened his already vile rhetoric even more to get more undecided or apathetic folks off of their couches to go to the polls.

I mean, they literally chose the rapist, racist, misogynistic, convicted felon, lunatic, and insurrectionist candidate over the admittedly imperfect but highly accomplished woman of color candidate, because reasons.  Or they simply didn't vote at all, or they voted third party, because they chose to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and we all ultimately got neither as a result. 

They had ONE job this time, and that was to simply get off the damn couch and cast a secret ballot for Kamala, the only person really standing in the way of Trump, and no one would ever have to know.  And they couldn't even do that!  And now that they have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind!

Unfortunately, ALL of us will.

America is basically dead and done now, and it will truly take a miracle of miracles to be able to transcend this madness and come out the other side in one piece.  Of course, once could argue that America was already slowly dying for quite some time now.  The fact that anywhere near half of the country would even remotely consider voting for Trump in the first place, again, would have been unthinkable in a truly healthy country and society. 

So as the darkness settles in once again, we need to keep all of this in mind.  And once again, we all must #RESIST tyranny of any kind.  If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. 

UBI Is The Only Way To End Modern Slavery (Updated Re-Post)

Most of the objections to Universal Basic Income (UBI), from both the left and the right (usually the right), are fundamentally patronizing, paternalistic, and/or sadistic in nature, whether subtly or not-so-subtly.  Those are, of course, very easily debunked as void on their face in anything even remotely approaching a free and civilized society.  But what about the very few supposedly ethical objections that don't quite fit this mold?

One such objection to UBI is that it is really just "crowdsourced slavery", both within nations as well as (especially) with the imperialistic Global North continuing to exploit the Global South.  Or something.

Tell me, how exactly does one "crowdsource" slavery?  And if everyone is getting free money, and all work thus becomes de facto voluntary and optional, who exactly is really being exploited or enslaved?  How would anybody be able to economically coerce anyone else?

And how exactly can it possibly be any worse than the status quo?  (Don't think too hard about that.)

Even the biggest degrowth advocates like Jason Hickel openly support UBI, and he is certainly no imperialist shill.  Ditto for Charles Eisenstein and David Graeber.

True, the Romans had the Cura Annonae (aka "the dole"), and slavery still persisted for quite some time then.  But what they didn't have, of course, was anywhere near the number of "energy slaves" that we have now, let alone today's technology that should have made all forms of slavery obsolete long ago, but for the system of late capitalism under which we live.

True, UBI is unlikely to be global overnight, and will have to start at the national or subnational level.  To avoid the worst unintended consequences, particularly those related to currencies and inflation, a global UBI (especially one directed primarily towards the Global South) would best be funded by a Tobin Tax on foreign currency exchanges, while a national, subnational, or local one would best be funded by seigniorage via national or local currencies, and/or Georgist-style taxation on the use of natural resources.  But until then, even a globally lopsided national-only UBI is highly unlikely to be any WORSE than the status quo, even if we do still maintain a sizable "trade deficit" in the near term.  In other words, if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, you ultimately end up with neither.

(Some may counter that they are really "making the necessary the enemy of the convenient", but that is really just begging the question.  Any way you slice it, it is an unserious argument to oppose UBI.)

Over the lifecycle, we ALL subsidize each other to one degree or another.  Period.  And whether we like it or not, the globalization genie is out of the bottle, and has been for some time now.  And while all empires should of course go back to being republics, returning to complete autarky (whether it be national or small-scale autarky) is a practical nonstarter for the foreseeable future, so a new model of "alter-globalization," perhaps combined with some partial economic relocalization, is the least worst way forward.  (The scarcity mindset sure doesn't help.)

Until then, we need to meet people where they are at.  Dismantling an empire this massive is best done very, very gingerly to avoid catastrophic unintended consequences, even if it takes a bit longer to do.

(Sorry, Tereza Coraggio, but history has shown that strictly small-scale sovereignty also has it's own set of pitfalls as well.  And unfortunately, NOT all people are inherently good either, and thus to blame any and all bad behavior entirely on The System is to rob individuals of agency.  Better to be protopian and not utopian, as the latter, which literally means "no place" in Greek, ultimately leads to dystopia in practice.)

As for slavery, I hereby cordially invite anyone reading this to go look up your own slavery footprint under the status quo.  Go on.  I bet your hands don't feel so clean now, do they?

If you still feel guilty about receiving UBI for whatever reason, then by all means, feel free to to donate it to GiveDirectly then.  Put your money where your mouth is.  Otherwise, silence is golden.

Bonus points for those who decide they now support UBI, even if only so they can now finally afford to buy ethically sourced, fair trade products instead of the usual cheap junk often produced by slave labor.  (Because, let's face it, "just doing without" is not only a political nonstarter, but often is not even a viable option at all under the current system, at least for those who are not extremely privileged, and is really like saying "let them eat cake".)  If you just spotted the very, very glaring "collective action problem" in the status quo before I mentioned it, you are thus quite astute, and even more bonus points to you.

If that's still not purist enough for you, dear reader, then feel free to "sell all you have, and give the proceeds to the [global] poor", as Jesus of Nazareth famously instructed the rich man.  (You may not feel rich, but you are far, far richer than even the very richest person was back then on an absolute basis, albeit admittedly ignoring relative wealth and poverty.)  And while there is no guarantee that you will "find treasure in Heaven" after doing so, at least then you could finally honestly oppose UBI for moral reasons without being a flaming hypocrite.

(Cue the crickets and cicadas)

Honestly, NO ONE's hands are truly clean in the system we currently live under.  Except for those at the very top (the oligarchs) and the very bottom (literal chattel slaves) of the global pyramid scheme, we are ALL effectively varying degrees of slaves AND slavers at the same time under the global kyriarchy.  (And yes, contrary to popular opinion, it is entirely possible for slaves to own or rent other slaves, as Harriet Beecher Stowe noted in her famous, and now politically incorrect, book whose very title was since converted into a mild to moderate racial slur.  There was then, and still is now, a pecking order that goes ALL the way down, in fact.)  And clearly some form of UBI is necessary, even if not sufficient by itself, to finally end this evil system once and for all.

(TL;DR version:  there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and the sooner we move beyond it into post-capitalism, the better we will all be.  UBI is a crucial key policy tool that, while not perfect, will still help further that goal from a protopian perspective.  After all, life doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.)

(Mic drop)

This November's Election Is For All The Marbles

Listen up, everyone.  Make no mistake, this November's election is for ALL the marbles.  And not just because the Donald has lost his marbles (he lost them long ago), but because the stakes are even higher still this time around.  A vote for Trump (or a vote for any third party candidate, or not voting at all) is effectively a vote for Project 2025, the latest Republican agenda, which would lead America into Margaret Atwood's worst nightmare.  What they are proposing is downright horrifying to say the least!  And it is also a vote for the Trump-Putin-Xi-Kim Axis of Evil as well.  Some may say that this election is essentially a choice between World War III and Civil War 2.0, but we think that Trump winning would make it that much more likely that we will get the two-for-one special, barring a miracle of miracles.

And to those who say that their vote doesn't count because it is rigged and the outcome is predetermined, keep in mind that such a thing really only happens when the election is close, and it becomes that much HARDER to cheat when the election is not close.  We still haven't gone so far down the rabbit hole of kleptocracy that we have full banana republic sham elections--YET.  (Though if Trump wins, he could very easily make that the case in the future.)  And if everyone who was eligible to vote actually voted, Trump (and the Republicans in general) really wouldn't stand a chance.

The lesson that should have been learned in 2016:  if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither. Seriously. 

P.S.  To all of the young(-ish) Trump supporting men out there who are still smug about Project 2025 because of your gender, race, etc., read the fine print.  One of the things on the agenda is to bring back the military draft.  Seriously.  That means YOU too.  So maybe you might want to reconsider which candidate, and party, you are willing to support.  And to all of the Serena Joy-esque self-hating misogynists out there, who think they personally will be spared, well, remember what ultimately happens to Serena in Atwood's novel.  Don't say you haven't been warned!

Like the song "Freewill" by Rush goes, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Excellent Article About UBI

The ever-insightful Rodger Malcolm Mitchell has a great new article about the topic of UBI from a Monetary Sovereignty perspective.  Read it and share it far and wide.  It needs to go VIRAL!

The only arguments against UBI are either ignorant, obsolete, greedy, selfish, patronizing, paternalistic, and/or sadistic, which means that there are really NO good arguments against it in any free and decent society worthy of the name.  Period.

(Mic drop)

The Latest Universal Basic Income (UBI) Experiment Study Is A Political-Philosophical Rorschach Test

Much has been made of the latest Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment run by tech CEO Sam Altman, lasting for three years beginning in 2020, and the study of the results by Eva Vivalt et al.  In a nutshell, the abstract below, particularly the text in bold (emphasis ours), seems to be a sort of political and philosophical Rorschach (inkblot) test, in which we all see what we subconsciously want to see:

We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/month. We gather detailed survey data, administrative records, and data from a custom mobile phone app. The transfer caused total individual income to fall by about $1,500/year relative to the control group, excluding the transfers. The program resulted in a 2.0 percentage point decrease in labor market participation for participants and a 1.3-1.4 hour per week reduction in labor hours, with participants’ partners reducing their hours worked by a comparable amount. The transfer generated the largest increases in time spent on leisure, as well as smaller increases in time spent in other activities such as transportation and finances. Despite asking detailed questions about amenities, we find no impact on quality of employment, and our confidence intervals can rule out even small improvements. We observe no significant effects on investments in human capital, though younger participants may pursue more formal education. Overall, our results suggest a moderate labor supply effect that does not appear offset by other productive activities.

And there you have it.  Some commenters have reacted positively to it, seeing it as a good thing, and some negatively, seeing it as a bad thing, often quite predictably based on political leanings.  That said, the following comment from a libertarian perspective on the Reason article clearly wins the internet:

check out reddit.com/r/antiwork

There are large groups of people who simply think it’s unfair that they are required to work in order to feed themselves. Why should they be required to do things that society deems “useful”?

I’m in favor of UBI as a replacement for welfare. I’m in favor of single payer basic healthcare as a way of decoupling healthcare from employers.

I’m ok with one of the consequences being that some people can stop pretending to work.

The commenter, Bubba Jones, makes an excellent point there.  So what if UBI results in such a modest drop in work hours and the nominal size of the labor force?  A drop of merely two percentage points and 1.4 hours per week is hardly a mass exodus from the workforce, and I would hazard a guess that the lion's share of the drop is concentrated among those who are at the lower end of the bell curve and the vitality curve, that is, marginally attached workers who tend to enervate more than they energize.  (Note as well that this study was done largely during the outlier years of the pandemic, so that may have biased the numbers.)  And in any case, more leisure is NOT inherently a bad thing.  As Robert Reich famously said, the economy exists to make our lives better, we don't exist to make the economy.   This of course echoes Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative that we should always treat humanity as ends in themselves, and never solely as a means to an end.

And it dovetails nicely with the famous quote by the late, great Buckminster Fuller, the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

(Mic drop)

UPDATE:  The ever-insightful Rodger Malcolm Mitchell has a great new article about the topic of UBI from a Monetary Sovereignty perspective.  Read it and share it far and wide.  It needs to go VIRAL!

Also, as the ever-insightful Marco Fioretti notes, the laws of physics ultimately demand some flavor of UBI from a limits-to-growth perspective.  Thus whether you are pro-growth, anti-growth, degrowth, or agnostic about growth, all roads lead to UBI.

And finally, to clarify, the TSAP agrees with the Reddit comment IF the middle part is modified as follows:

"I’m in favor of UBI as a replacement for [cash] welfare. I’m in favor of single payer basic [comprehensive] healthcare as a way of decoupling healthcare from employers."

There, fixed it for you.  And once again:

(Mic drop)

2025 UPDATE:  The Sam Altman study is now no longer the largest UBI study, much less the final word on the matter.  A more recent Los Angeles UBI study that began in 2022, with an even larger number of participants, found that it actually increased full-time employment, and was overall beneficial.  This one gave $1000 per month per household.  Of course, all of the participants in this study either had or were expecting dependent children, unlike the Sam Altman trial which included both parents and non-parents, but even in the latter, the small reduction in work was largely concentrated among younger adults who didn't have kids, who could afford to hold out for better jobs.  Which makes sense, as having kids is quite expensive these days, and while $1000/month certainly helps make ends meet, it is practically impossible for even an individual, let alone a whole family, to live on by itself in California.

And the results of a Canadian study (2017-2019) have also shown far more positive effects as well, rebutting the bootlicker narrative. The results were in five years ago, but are finally being unearthed by the mainstream now.

What Hath The FERAL Reserve Wrought?

The FERAL Reserve needs to answer the Clue Phone, as it is ringing louder than ever.  The stock market is crashing, and the Sahm Rule recession indicator is currently flashing red.  The broader economy itself is not crashing--yet--but at least a mild recession seems to be already baked into the cake at this point.  

The Fed's overzealous crusade against inflation has ultimately jumped the proverbial shark a while ago.  They hiked interest rates too high and stubbornly kept them too high for too long, creating a stagflationary quagmire as a result.  Inflation began to fall on its own once the pandemic-induced global supply chain crisis was resolved, and also the geopolitical issues abroad (war, sanctions, etc.) were less intense for the USA than initially thought, no thanks to the interest rate hikes, which only deepened the quagmire in the long run. 

We have been saying for a while now, and will say it again:  the Fed absolutely MUST cut interest rates yesterday, full stop.  An emergency rate cut of 100 basis points (aka one full percentage point) is clearly indicated for this situation to prevent the worst case scenario from unfolding.   

Don't say we didn't warn you!

UPDATE:  Looks like the stock market has recovered from the correction for now.  But our point still stands regardless.  And inflation is basically defeated for the time being.  Cut interest rates NOW!

Liberty Is Not A "Luxury Belief". It Is A Birthright For All

The term "luxury beliefs" has gained quite a lot of traction since it was coined in 2019, and especially since 2022, by Rob Henderson.  Per Wikipedia:

A luxury belief is an idea or opinion that confers status on members of the upper class at little cost, while inflicting costs on persons in lower classes.  The term is often applied to privileged individuals who are seen as disconnected from the lived experiences of impoverished and marginalized people. Such individuals supposedly hold political and social beliefs that signal their elite status, yet which are alleged to have negative impacts on those with the least influence. Exactly what counts as a luxury belief is not always consistent and may vary from person to person, and the term in general is considered to be controversial.

Make no mistake, it is typically only (social) conservatives that have been using the term in recent years to describe their opponents' views on various hot-button issues (bail reform, criminal justice, policing, MMT, immigration, net zero, environmentalism, marriage and family, sexual freedom, reproductive rights, drug legalization and decriminalization, etc.).  Occasionally the left and center-left have used the term (much more accurately, we would argue) to describe conservative beliefs like "supply-side economics", "trickle-down theory", austerity, artificial scarcity, weak or nonexistent social safety nets, and stuff like that, but the use of the term on the left in that context is relatively rare.

On the right, and even somewhat on the "third way" neoliberal left since President Clinton, there seems to be this specious idea that too much personal liberty is somehow apocalyptically worse than too little, particularly for the poor, downtrodden, and vulnerable members of society, and especially for racialized minorities (who says conservatives don't "play the race card" when it's convenient?).  We argue that this is a patronizing and paternalistic attitude towards people that the talking heads (consciously or unconsciously) feel smugly superior to, and it essentially robs such people of agency.  And to be blunt about it, as the saying goes, "crap always rolls downhill".  That is, granted, ANY policy can have unintended consequences per Murphy's Law, and as a well-known corollary, those negative consequences tend to accrue disproportionately to those who lack the means to insulate themselves from such consequences, particularly those at the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy.  For example, in that regard, we can call the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs just as much if not more of a "luxury belief" as full drug legalization would be in practice, as the adverse consequences (which are not entirely unintended!) fall disproportionately on poor people and/or racialized minorities. 

As Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) famously said, "you can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction".  And that clearly applies tenfold to the poor as it does to the rich.

The real problem is systemic, as must any real solution be.  But liberty per se is not the problem.  While the utterly patronizing and paternalistic protectionism and "tyranny of the weaker brother" is the real luxury belief here, as are the economic ones like "trickle-down theory", austerity, and neoliberalism. ("Catch and release" and "defund the police" are the only ones that Henderson mentions that even come close in that regard.)

The TSAP supports liberty and justice for all, in contrast to liberty for "just us", NOT all.  To quote Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies (sic) attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it".  Truer words have never been spoken indeed.

(Mic drop)