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Get rid of minimum wage entirely and replace it with UBI and universal healthcare - now you can at least survive without having an income. If you want more than just the bare necessities of food, shelter, and healthcare, you can get a job to earn more money. But, because you're not forced to work to survive, you can be much more selective about the job you take. Businesses will be forced to offer better pay, better working conditions, more flexibility, etc. because now nobody is forced into working a shit job just to make ends meet.
Get rid of minimum wage entirely and replace it with UBI and universal healthcare
Do UBI and healthcare first.
I feel like this is the most correct solution.
Came here to post this answer. This guy progresses.
Unironically the objectively correct answer.
As the owner of an asbestos factory and slaughterhouse, I don't like this.
Also more public housing. Everyone needs somewhere to live and letting a handful of people siphon wealth out of that isn't working out for us.
I've been thinking a lot recently about limits on property ownership, like how they would work and what the side effects would be. I feel like there needs to be something to prevent a necessary resource like housing from becoming monopolized. Something like antitrust law for property ownership.
Sure, maybe that would help, too. But like any system built by humans you're going to need consistent, rigorous, investments in education or in a few generations you'll have idiots tearing down chesterton's fence. "I don't see why monopolies are so bad" -> "oh no why is everything so expensive and dangerous??"
It would also allow for more automation within factories because there's no downside to losing a job.
It would truly fix a shit ton of problems and only for the better.
Authoritarian Capitalists: "They're taking your jobs!"
UBI: "Yeah...and?"
So, a bit of an André Gorz question here: If we try to further the economy via working towards consumption, or buying what we want outside of basic needs being met, social inequality will still be a problem. Think, for instance, of someone who might be disabled and can’t find the extra employment to afford a car or something on one end, and me being jealous of my neighbor’s PS5 on the other. We’d be effectively driven to compete yet again for the jobs that we thought we could escape, progressing consumer culture as the end goal. Do you think a different goal is possible?
That's hard to answer. I'm not sure if humans would be able to create a stable society that didn't rely on consumerism. We're wired to try to maximize our resources, and this doesn't seem to stop even when basic needs have been comfortably met. I can't say I'm at all knowledgeable about this though. I'll have to think more on it.
How do you keep landlords from taking all the UBI?
Murder
Okay, that's pretty funny. In all seriousness, I don't have a complete solution. First step is to end corporate ownership of single-family homes. I'd also like to see a property tax rate that increases geometrically based on total area of land a person owns as well as the value of the land. Nobody, no matter how productive, should be able to own 8000 square kilometers under any circumstances, but especially when we have unhoused people working 40 hours per week.
