Neo-feudalism is expressed by a clique of mega-billionaires controlling the technologies that put millions out of work, and then offering Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a way to enslave all others permanently. The tipping point will be the realization that machines (AI) can more reliably make more profit than people can. Sam Altman has sold this scam to the whole world, and the Fortune 1000 are panting for it. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.
I once worked in communities supported mainly through a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Most money was received from the government for no (or token) work, or from mining royalties where others worked digging on the communities’ lands. There were walls black and heaving with cockroaches while children slept with dogs on stained mattresses below, and babies covered head to toe in pustular scabies while the mother complained about a sore back. This was not universal, but not uncommon. Other communities that stood out as strong and healthy had people working hard for a living – particularly in roles that reflected their culture – a very different economy.
Men who once worked hard to support families lose the reason to do so when it makes no real difference, when basics of life and leisure are equally available to those who work for them and those who do nothing. It is not a political issue, just a human behavioural and psychological one. Removing the need to work and the dignity that striving and succeeding brings, especially for one’s family, leads to inaction, loss of interest in the world, a loss of role, loss of dignity and depression. This is dampened by alcohol or drugs. Wives and children suffer by being beaten up by drunk, frustrated and drug-addled men. Having two frequently drunk parents ensures children are malnourished and aimless.
This is not theoretical – it is seen all over the world where people of one culture are overrun by those of another and confined to subservience, economic and societal irrelevance, and handouts. Some people and communities break out of it, usually by finding ways to grow their local economy and achieve some form of self-governance and self-reliance. Breaking out is not common and requires an opportunity, the possibility, to do so.
Our brave new technocratic world
The road much of the ‘developed’ world is currently on is towards UBI, but without that potential for escape. I use this term ‘developed’ in a technological sense – not a human sense – as it denotes technology rather than awareness. UBI will be introduced as a panacea to the problem of artificial intelligence replacing a lot of jobs. The use of AI is increasing because it can accumulate wealth for investors more reliably than employees can. Amazon’s plans to replace humans with robots will not only mean a few hundred thousand human jobs gone at Amazon, but lots more high-street shops boarded up and their employees and owners gone. AI may be overplayed or not, but what Amazon is doing will be widely repeated.
The people out of work, by and large, will be city and town dwellers who must obtain their food from shops (or Amazon). They will need to be given money or food vouchers to do this. Governments will provide these, because they cannot afford responsibility for abject poverty on a mass scale, and many in government also mean well. People will increasingly rent their housing from Blackstone or a similar corporate entity rather than own it, further increasing their dependence. For a while, some people will play online games or draw pictures and grow token lettuces on their balconies, but knowing this is just window dressing on life. Then they will go the way of the communities at the top of this piece, taking families and communities with them.
Government UBI will happen – it already does to some extent in the widespread use of welfare payments, but the future will see it on a far, far larger scale. It will not be cash handouts but digital currency. This will be a tightly controlled version, as in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), because the government will claim responsibility to control the money it dispenses. CBDC is essentially food vouchers, and intended to be. Your UBI will be yours as long as you use it for what the government allows, within the time it allows.
PERCEPTION RESET 