Ask Lemmygrad

Under a free market system most of the increase in workers purchasing power would translate into bid up rent prices and higher profits for landleeches, higher rents and not much benefit for the ordinary worker.

The proposals for ubi presented by presidential candidate Andrew Yang would require recipients to stop recieving other forms of government assistance - no more food stamps, no disability benefits, no housing assistance. This would endanger disabled comrades and put them in s position of relative disadvantage and take away their currently existing accommodations within society. While the average worker may be slightly better off with ubi, a disabled person would receive much less benefit from such a change in the system.

Many proponents of ubi wish to tie it to the undoing of minimum wage laws, claiming that ubi would offset the need for such protections.

Who would pay for it? Rich people have found a myriad of wayd of avoiding taxation and so the burden of ubi may well fall on workers themselves, with higher taxes offsetting the direct payment of ubi - this may benefit lower paid workers slightly but would cause division between higher paid workers and lower paid workers. It may well end up having s very similar effect to the prebate/negative tax systems favored by libertarians.

Ultimately as Marxists we seek to empower workers with ownership over the means of production, ubi is just some crumbs thrown at workers by the owners of the means of production - tho likely paid for by the workers themselves. It will dampen revolutionary energy and cause increasing division within and with the outside of society.

Will migrants be eligible? If not will we create an underclass of struggling workers excluded from the ubi programme, unable to afford higher rents. Will this not lead to calls to restrict migration/extension of citizenship?

As a resident of the global south, where discussion of ubi is almost nonexistent and the likelihood of such programmes being implemented is very low - it seems like ubi is just rich nation people arguing over how to divide the spoils of empire and I'm pretty sure it will in no way benefit the poorest people on earth. If rich nations want to offer cash money to people in the global south, that would be great but let's be real - that is not what is being proposed. All we will see is higher barriers to migration.

As Marxists we are not asking for "free" money. We are asking for fair pay. Ubi is a right wing band aid on capitalism and not something we can endorse. If implemented it would only make worse the situation for the poorest.

Making basic necessities (housing, public transport, food, electricity, water, internet) free at the point of use would be a better programme and one that perhaps we could find some liberal allies to support.