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A Majority of Americans Now Support Seizing Wealth From AI Industry (www.einnews.com)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1261690/a-majority-of-americans-now-support-seizing-wealth-from-ai-industry

While 89% back mandatory safety disclosures, nearly 70% support requiring AI firms to transfer 50% of their stock to a public fund

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[–] 3 points 3 months ago (5 children)

One aspect of capitalism that many people don't get is that capital is only capital and not just money, because you can force people to work for you, that's why UBI or paying people based on stock values will never be enough to get your average person out of wage slavery.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    that’s why UBI ... will never be enough to get your average person out of wage slavery.

    Care to elaborate on that one?

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

    It's fundamental to capitalism

    Capital is "Wealth, money, or assets used to start a business, produce goods, or invest for future growth"

    Even if you don't fully agree with the labor theory of value if you accept that it's partially accurate, then it's fundamental to capitalism to have a captive workforce that have to work to survive, because that's how you turn your money into more money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value

    That's why the development of modern capitalism was contingent on enclosing the commons and taking away people's ability to survive without working in factories for capitalists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Parliamentary_inclosure_acts

    And also why the myth of the tragedy of the commons was invented by a literal lord: https://inthesetimes.com/article/commons-practices-capitalism-enclosure-peasants-indigenous-collective-ownership

    If you really want to get into the details Marx lays it out pretty well in Capital vol.1 (even if it's not written in a particularly concise way and quite Eurocentric, I think this aspect is pretty well sourced and does explain how capitalism came to be in Europe pretty well).

    So under a capitalist system, where capitalists & the state need your labor in order to enrich themselves, no alternative to labor is ever going to remove the requirement for people to work in order to access what they need to survive.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_mode_of_production#Distinguishing_characteristics

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    So, you're saying that the fundamental reason why people will always work is because a few rich bastards want it that way?

    Sounds like a problem that has been solved many times in the past, never permanently so far but it never hurts to try again.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I was only saying that under capitalism, the system requires people be separated from the resources we need to survive and forced to work, so we should at a minimum replace that with something better.

    But i do agree that as long as some people control access to what we need to survive, those people they will use that control to extract value from the rest of us

    I think it's only been solved a few times in the past, and usually that happens capitalists & authoritarian "communists" did a lot of work to prevent it spreading.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    I say: UBI is how you break that separation of the people from the resources they need to survive.

    I say: UBI is something better. It is an automatic social safety net. It gives every citizen "credibility" that they can make some regular payments reliably.

    I say: even $600 per month UBI would give everyone the ability to tell an overbearing boss "no, I'm not doing that."

    I say: UBI + flat tax is a fair, progressive tax system which "caps out" at a rate that's fair (equal) for everyone and doesn't tax the poor, it's a negative tax on the poor.

    I say: UBI is affordable. At a rate of $600 per month UBI, a US flat tax of roughly 33% would be revenue neutral, providing the $2.5T per year necessary to fund UBI and another $2.5T for incentive programs that used to be called "incentive tax breaks." This would be a modest tax break for the top earners who currently pay 37% on every dollar they earn above their current income. It would represent a tax increase on the wealthy, but they would never be paying more than the 33% flat rate that everyone in the country would pay on every dollar earned.

    I say: UBI is overdue. There are 134 government domestic aid programs in the US, each one more byzantinely administered than the next. Most of those could be eliminated, replaced by UBI. Break out my tiniest violin for the bureaucrats who won't be "needs testing program applicants" anymore, they'll get UBI like the rest of us.

    I say: only a tiny fraction of the US population would be opposed to UBI if they understood the impact it would truly have on their daily lives. Nobody would need to beg on street corners. Nobody would need to steal to eat. People would still do it, but people doing that with UBI could be short-tracked to the counselling they need to get their lives straightened out so they aren't desparate anymore. Who wants to live in a country with a bunch of desperate people?

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