this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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There have been some pretty extensive studies that indicate that when you give poor people money, they become less poor. When you give poor people enough money to live on, they stop being poor. It’s a radical concept, but it’s also the truth.
Yeah UBI would solve this. This might be a criticism of contemporary capitalism, but it isn't a critique of capitalism more broadly because in principle, capitalism can have a UBI.
More fruitful anti-capitalist critiques emphasize workplace authoritarianism, the employer's appropriation of the whole product of a firm, monopoly power associated with private ownership especially of land and natural resources, and inability to effectively allocate resources towards public goods
Even a UBI specifically for food- food stamps for all- would make a massive change and improve millions of lives.
This could have negative effects similar to what has been seen in communist countries where vendor lock-in leads to weakened quality control if not every company can accept those food vouchers.
It's good to allow people freedom of choice.
UBI would be at its best as a static lump sum of money.
Every supermarket already accepts food stamps. Expanding the program wouldn't change that.
How about any small business? If the process of being able to accept food stamps has bureaucracy, you'll end up locking out small companies unable to meet requirements or who cannot afford it.
Food stamps at scale could also lead to stores opting for the cheapest alternatives. Salaries will ultimately scale down through supply and demand to a point where people will have less money, but now they'll have stamps. This in turn can hurt innovation and competition as newer products tend to cost more and people will need make stamps suffice for daily food.
A money-based UBI is safer as you'll ultimately see smaller salaries, but the amount of money you'll have per month will remain static. This gives freedom of choice. Not to mention people also need homes, clothing and other daily goods in exchange for money.
Any business selling food can accept food stamps. There's no barrier to accepting them. I'm not sure why you think any food-selling business would be left out.
I think they don't actually understand SNAP and they think you're talking about literal vouchers like it's an alternate physical currency.
I actually think if we added universal EBT/SNAP we could have the same effective pros of vouchers by having government-run supermarkets pop up. The "public option" would actually work for groceries, unlike healthcare (which should be universal).
EBT would save money building their own retailer and negotiating their own prices (or even enforced price regulation for them), which would force for-profit grocery stores to permanently compete against a non-profit-seeking competitor they would never be able to run out of business.