UBI vs FJG
A Federal Job Guarantee is real progress. A UBI advances our deterioration.
Raul Carrillo argues for permanent, non-discretionary funding of income, healthcare, housing, education, employment for all.
A “lump of money” in the form of a basic income does not resolve the distributional or power inequalities between those with capital and those without.
Most think of the UBI from a national perspective but comparatively little thought has gone into the global perspective.
UBI is both an important topic in its own right and a useful lens for examining recurrent virtues and vices in projects of partial decommodification and universal provision.
Instead, we should look to stabilize our national economy with a Federal Jobs Guarantee instead of using a program unique to just one state.
“Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.”
This simplistic, incorrect, and devastatingly neoliberal plan of instituting a Universal Basic Income will be the final blow against the public purpose and General Welfare Clause as well as an effective coup for the rightwing to establish cash payment as opposed to the services millions desperately need.