UBI and environmental consumption

ANON-

"I love the fact that people are waking up to the #FreedomDividend and how great it will be for the country, but I hope it doesn't fuel more excessive consumption of cheap products that are not good for the environment. Is there an angle to work with here so people would, ideally, use their dividend responsibly?"

Neil Adam Collins It seems like there is an assumption here hidden in this worry. The hidden assumption is that if people don't have the Freedom Dividend, the $1000 a month, if things stay as they are, without UBI, with a large group in poverty THEN... the environment will be better off, that the environment will be ok. So, is people being poor and struggling... is that the thing that is protecting the environment right now??

I don't think it is. I think that the things which are really destroying the environment are on a scale larger than what the average and below average income person would effect if they had $1000 a month. If we care about the environment we will have to realize that the consumption habits of the average consumer is a very small part of the problem.

The vastly larger harm done to the environment lies in the choices of industry, the way mining and logging is done, the way products are made, the way they are packaged, the way they are shipped back and forth around the world, the massive pollution caused by cruise ships, by the excessive air travel of the wealthy who fly around the world many times a year for business or vacation etc... These structural decisions, economic decisions are made by governments and corporations on gigantic global scales. Yet the average person is busy worrying about how to recycle an extra can or use a couple less plastic straws a week. I can't help think this way of thinking, of putting all the blame into the mind of the small time consumer is a smokescreen.

Milton Fang Yang proposes a UBI to solve a basic problem, a transitional shift from manual labor to automation and AI. This constantly has devolved to what will people spend UBI on or will they decide to be lazy or what not. Yang believes that it really does not matter what people spend their UBI on at this point. I don't think he believe UBI will solve all the problems in the world, but it's gotta start by solving some basic problems. So by providing UBI, this solves some basic problems in 3 folds. 1 - it gives everyone a floor so that our moral basis is covered (over population / consumption is an entirely other issue that needs to be tackled). 2 - it provides for a more equalized say/participation in capitalism (and eventually when the people/government is the largest capital holder as they should be, corporations will naturally need defer to the people/customer). 3 - get people's minds off economic survival, and into larger issues like climate crisis, over consumption, moral values, and start putting human intellect and ingenuity to solve future problems, instead of wasting it on present woes.


(Notice point about "Scarcity mindset".)