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Blue sky basic income thinking is b****cks

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I believe we can never reach (1) in a capitalist system, because capitalism always acts to limit the supply of goods that become un-scarce. If it really became essentially free to make food, electrical power, etc., sellers would abandon the market until those goods became scarce and were worth money again.

The only thing that can become post-scarcity is human labor, because market forces don't act well to limit supply, at least assuming we don't want to let people starve to death in the streets. I really hope we don't get there, but I'm not sure what's going to prevent it. Schemes like basic income are anathema to the philosophical and religious beliefs that underlie our social contract, and the only other option would seem to be a neo-Luddite movement to unwind automation, which is also unlikely to go over well.

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