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comment by bioemerl
bioemerl  ·  2876 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: If Uber drivers were employees, they'd be owed at least $730 million

Hardly.

Basic income is inherently and fully an effort to preserve the idea of capitalism in a world where labor is no longer required for the vast majority of products, it is a stepping stone to post scarcity where we go from a world where everyone must work for society to produce and be efficient, to a world where our numbers largely exist so that we can have that 1 in 100 birth who has a great idea and is able to revolutionize and recreate an industry.

Basic income is the assumption that it is impossible to expect people to have to work for their life in the future, because robots will be so diverse and common that it will be impossible to find jobs in large enough numbers to have a supported economy.

Communism/socialism would demand the workers own the means of production, that workers mandate what employers can and cannot do. They would demand that the products of the machines, and the machines themselves, belong to the people so all the profits should be equally shared and distributed.

Basic income states "yes, you are worthless and do not provide anything, so you only get to live a bad life of having basic human rights and little else." It states "If you want to produce something, to work, to provide for society, you get to live a better life."

Ultimately, basic income is capitalism 2.0, not socialism or communism.