The New Human Rights Movement looks at the root causes to our social and environmental problems. It does an impressive job of shedding light on the structural nature of these issues, cutting through what is usually seen as disconnected failures or political corruption. One of the main problems we face as activists or simply as people trying to make sense of our world is that we tend to focus on symptoms and face a never ending, futile fight of trying to combat injustice. Luckily there is a more radical and effective way to view things. Strangely enough as it may seem, this more effective perspective comes in the form of science rather than morality, public opinion or heartfelt good intentions. Science has been making observations and conclusions based on research and empirical evidence for some time now as to root causes and systemic flaws in our social and economic system.... but change is slow due to what can be called culture lag as well as the retarding effects of capitalist interests. Peter Joseph shows us these important informational findings of science in a relevant and eye opening way. He also lays out a refreshingly rational vision for our future both in general and in detail which is hopeful and yet based  on what I see to be solid logic. I honestly wish that everyone could read this book!

Basic Income and inflation, Rents

I have seen it claimed several times that Basic Income would just cause rents to go up or even prices in general and that this would simply cancel out the Basic Income.


Luckily Scott Santens has already dealt with this issue. Here I have copied his article.



https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7


article by: Scott Santens
article appearing on MEDIUM on Nov. 22, 2014



By far, the most common concern in regards to my first article on Medium about the idea of an unconditional basic income was that all prices would inevitably go up as a result, immediately reducing the value of each dollar and essentially creating a new zero. Let’s call it the “New Zero Argument” against basic income.


The New Zero Argument: Although a noble idea to give money to those in need, no one would actually be better off as a result of basic income due to everything costing more — especially rent — and therefore the policy idea is entirely pointless because the only thing it would attain is a new zero.


In economic terms, this concern is the fear of inflation or even hyperinflation, and it is possibly the most common reflex to the notion of just transferring more money to the lower and middle classes. So how grounded in reality is this concern?
Not Printing Money


Now that we know more about what gives money its value, and how we actually want a small amount of inflation, we need to understand that basic income is not the idea of printing $3 trillion new dollars every year and dropping it on everyone from helicopters.


(Although there are arguments to be made that to a lesser degree this could be done on a temporary and varying basis as economic stimulus according to perceived economic conditions as a kind of “quantitative easing for people” instead of banks)


The money for a basic income guarantee would be already existing money circulated through the economic system. It would not be new money, just money shifted from one location to another. This means that the value of each dollar has not changed. The dollar itself has only changed hands.


It is also important to note the observation that even when money supply is vastly expanded, the effects on prices need not be extreme. For example, the Fed’s quantitative easing added over four trillion new dollars to the U.S. money supply, and the results were not enough inflation, as defined by the Fed.


“But even with the trillions of dollars pumped into the economy, the Fed has been perpetually unable to get inflation up to the 2 percent level it aims for, except for the occasional brief period. There is good news in that predictions by many Fed critics that Q.E. would unleash vicious hyperinflation have come nowhere close to materializing. But neither has it been enough for the Fed to reach its self-imposed goal. In an economy trying to get out from under an overhang of debt, where excessive unemployment is the leading problem, too-low inflation can be deeply problematic and hold back growth. Q.E. has not been powerful enough to generate as much inflation as the Fed says it wants.”


So even though basic income would not be printing new money for everyone, even if it were, inflation would not be a guaranteed result.


With that understood, to then understand how much we should actually fear rising prices as a result of redistributing existing money from one place to another instead of printing new money requires some studying, but the short answer is that capitalism not only still exists with basic income, it is enhanced.


By enhanced, I mean there is growing evidence from where basic incomes have been actually tried that it increases entrepreneurship. We also have actual examples of partial basic incomes, that we can examine for inflationary evidence.


Aside from this evidence, we also need to understand how increased demand leading to higher prices isn’t as simple as we might think is is, and how when it comes to housing prices, in a future where everyone has basic incomes, we are likely to see some very interesting market adjustments. Meanwhile, fears involving unearned income and increased velocity require a closer examination.


Because of all the above that needs to be understood in order to more fully examine the question of basic income and inflation, I have split off the above information into four separate smaller articles. Let’s call them Exhibits, A, B, C, and D.


If you wish to learn more about each collection of evidence, just read the attached sub-article before moving on. Or you can just keep on reading.
A is for Alaska


In 1982, Alaska began providing a partial basic income annually to all its residents. Until the first dividend, Alaska had a higher rate of inflation than the rest of the United States. But ever since the dividend was introduced, Alaska has had a lower rate of inflation than the rest of the United States.


A partial basic income was also provided in Kuwait in 2011, when every citizen was given $4,000. Fears of increasing inflation were rampant, as Kuwait already had high inflation. Instead of bad inflation getting worse, it actually got better, decreasing from record highs to under 4 percent.


Elsewhere, where basic income experiments have been actually tried and studied, the result in each case is increased entrepreneurship. People use their basic incomes to invest in themselves and their futures, creating new businesses and helping to drive the economy beyond what would be possible without it. This means more people competing for basic income dollars, with better goods and services and lower costs.


All of this represents real evidence to counter any fear of inflation.
B is for Basics


To further inform inflationary fears on a more academic basis, it’s also important to understand the basic variability of supply and demand and how it applies to various goods and services.


Where demand already exists and supply is already paid for, demand is unlikely to change as basic income simply replaces one method of payment with another. E.g., replacing food stamps with basic income is unlikely to make people buy more milk. It just means people will likely buy the same amount of milk with cash instead of SNAP.


Where demand is actually increased, depending on the good or service, supply can also easily be increased, be increased with some investment in capacity, or not be increased. It is this third case where prices can rise, and points more to increases in prices for luxuries, and not basic goods and services.


All of this represents academic evidence to counter any fear of inflation.
Exhibit C:
C is for Creation


Rising rent is a particularly worrisome fear for many when first introduced to the idea of basic income. However, two very important things in particular need to be understood when it comes to housing.
There are five times more vacant homes than homeless people in the United States today. This represents a large unused supply that need only be made available. The reason many people are not living in these homes is because they were at one time but couldn’t afford to keep them. Basic income rectifies this and puts people back in homes.
Technology represents a major factor in future housing prices, especially a future where everyone has a basic income. Everyone will receive a monthly check to afford rent, and will want to spend as little of it as possible on rent. Meanwhile, owners will want to compete for this money with other owners. Those offering the lowest rents will win. One example of this would be Google deciding to create Google Homes and leasing them out to people for a fraction of what people are paying now. Another example would be super affordable WikiHouses.


For these two reasons in particular, in combination with the ability of everyone to truly live anywhere for the first time in history, a nationwide market for ultra-affordable housing will be created, and smart businesses will step into this space in hopes of dominating it.


All of this represents theoretical evidence to counter any fear of inflation.
Exhibit D:






D is for Depression


Two lesser known economic concerns among those who know of them, are possible differences in how we perceive the value of money depending on how it was received, and how quickly it is spent.


There is a popular conception that unearned income is perceived differently than earned income, and therefore spent more spuriously. Because people are considered more likely to spend money they didn’t earn, the fear is that people will pay more for goods and services with basic income, and therefore increase prices. This is a misconception though, and not backed by evidence, with the opposite observed in Alaska, where the dividend is treated virtually identically to earned income.


The frequency with which a single dollar is spent in the economy — known as the velocity of money — is another variable in the inflation equation. The faster the velocity, the higher inflation can get. However, velocity as measured by the entire money supply is currently lower now than ever in U.S. history. And as measured by the real money supply, it has been crashing since 2007.


We want higher velocity for a healthy economy, and the fear that unearned income has less value is unsupported.


All of this represents economic evidence to counter any fear of inflation.
The Inflation Bogeyman


Inflation is not the unmanageable danger it is made out to be. It is a complex equation involving multiple variables, and in the context of evaluating the idea of a universal basic income guarantee, because a basic income will be set at a basic level, there is even less to fear.


Because we have actual evidence, there is less to fear.


Because capitalism will be enhanced, there is less to fear.


Because technology will continue to advance and make goods like housing cheaper, there is less to fear.


Because our economic capacity is underutilized and underconsumption is systemic, there is less to fear.


There is however one real thing to fear…
Increased Wages and Salaries


Basic income could provide an upward force on wages through increased individual bargaining power and slightly decreased labor force participation rates, and businesses as a result of new higher labor costs could raise their prices so as to keep their profits unchanged.


This would mean that if you are currently earning $20,000 per year, you’d not only get an extra $12,000 per year in basic income, but also $10,000 in higher wages. Your new yearly income would be $42,000 and groceries might end up costing you an extra 1.4 percent per month.


Would you personally have a problem with earning an extra $22,000 and paying an extra $50 on groceries? Let’s assume you would, and that you also think it’s wrong the cost of food would go up for everyone else as well, including those with only $12,000 per year basic incomes, and therefore with tighter fixed budgets. There is one last final detail to understand.


Any basic income can and should be indexed to match or beat inflation.


Indexing Basic Income


Just as the minimum wage has eroded over time because of inflation and the political fight over ever raising it, a basic income should automatically rise each year to match inflation so that it doesn’t erode in the same way.


Better yet, instead of just indexing a basic income to CPI, it could even be indexed to something like productivity, so that the gains of society continue to accrue more widely for everyone, instead of only the few.(Because wages and salaries certainly aren’t rising with productivity and haven’t for decades.)


The result of this would be a basic income that always increases faster than inflation, so that each and every year, we would be able to buy a greater amount of goods and services than the year before.


It cannot be stressed enough that this ability is especially important to enable in advance of the decades ahead of us as software and hardware continue to decrease the need for human labor, and as a result, decreases availability of ever decreasing incomes derived from human labor.
So why again was I ever worried about inflation?


Good question.


article by: Scott Santens
article appearing on MEDIUM on Nov. 22, 2014

Cop Car Blocking a Downtown Intersection painting

"Cop Car Blocking Downtown Intersection on a Saturday Night"
Oil on Masonite, 16" x 24"
by Neil A. Collins, 2017.

Urban 12 by 12

"Urban 12 by 12" 
by Neil A. Collins
Oil on masonite, 12" x 12"
2017.

Portrait of Pia with face paint

Untitled painting,
Oil on Masonite, 12" x 24"
by Neil A. Collins, 2017. — with Pia Alicia-Pilar Mogollon.

My response to "Universal Basic Serfdom"

This article came out in 2016 claiming that UBI was not a path towards an RBE or a money free world.




http://freeworlder.com/blog/2016/11/06/universal-basic-serfdom/




Here is my response:


I have read the article and while the author makes some interesting points, I disagree with many of the conclusions. I disagree based on both my own experience and upon information I have read from supporters of UBI.


First point was....
"I’ve yet to hear any credible argument that free money somehow helps you get away from money"
There are many projects such as solar, getting more education, expanding my small aquaponic system, etc... which I would like to pursue but am unable to do so because do not have ANY cash. I barely have enough money to eat and many times have to go to the food bank so I won't starve. If I had a basic income I would be spending my money and time to become self sufficient from the monetary system in the ways I mentioned. Not to mention that I have a strong desire to help others through giving food to homeless people, etc... but that is not possible without money, or any other way to get food.
Basically, I do what I can right now, which without funds is close to nothing.

Another reason this can lead to a money free world is that currently, in this system we live in, HUMAN LIFE IS WORTH NOTHING. Sure, people will talk talk talk about how people's lives matter but in reality it simply isn't the case. A basic income would be one of the first times in history where a person would be recognized as having a fundamental right to exist and even with a little dignity. That actually is a major step towards an RBE. As it stands now, you have the right to exist... IF. If you have a job, if you have a helping family, if you have a trust fund, if you have an inheritence, IF you have a disability which you can get the government to recognize. Currently you have a right to exist IF, IF, IF. If not? You can fucking starve.

Another point by the author is:
"We can’t make an Open Economy happen unless we ‘visionaries’ have the support of the masses. It needs everyone to jump on board for it to work, in the same way money works: it’s a common agreement. Getting those masses on board will be a hell of a lot easier when they are themselves feeling the pinch of the market system (as they are now). However, if we keep plying them with money’s sugary pacifier to stop their minds ‘wandering’, then that will put paid to those ideas for maybe another hundred years or so. (Time we don’t actually have at current environmental / population trends)"

I understand the logic of this but I really do not believe it is in any way acceptable to advocate the suffering and starvation of millions (if we are talking about the USA) and billions worldwide just so they will "feel the squeeze" and get it. This is a horrendous stance to take if a solution is available to avoid such suffering and starvation. Perhaps starvation is some kind of theoretical idea to the author and not a very real threat which he has experienced? I don't know enough to claim that about him but I would never want to punish the 'masses' into waking up in this way. The current system does enough of that already and it hasn't really helped a whole lot. It sounds like some strange twist of Malthusian paternalism to me.

But nevermind the moral cruelty of this point of view, the more important question is would it work? I really don't think so. Currently many people in the lower and middle classes spend much of their time working and are too busy and worn out to take much interest in thinking about changing society or researching ideas to do so. As automation continues to eat up the job market, the stress and competitive instinct will continue to strengthen. After all, this system thrives on competition and is based on scarcity. As people are forced to compete with each other to unheard of levels in the very near future they will more than likely just ;hunker down' on the very behaviors which we want to move away from. Some of those behaviors are competition rather than collaboration, further uneducated and narrow-minded assessments of what causes societal problems and so on.

If people had a basic income they would not need to cling so tightly to the competitive, scarcity based behaviors and ways of thinking which capitalism creates. People would have the ability to learn and entertain ideas which they did not previously have the time to investigate. I will also add that a large amount of the desire for mind numbing entertainment which is seen especially in the working class comes from the need to escape from the reality of struggle and the long hours spent doing things to survive. I am speaking from personal experience.

Then he says:
"As my good friend Rafi succinctly put it; “how does more money get you to no money?”
Simple enough but the fact is it is a different kind of money. Money in which you need to spend a large portion of your time working an order to get is very different than money which is supplied to you based on the fact that you are human and have certain requirements such as food, shelter, transportation, etc...
I am against money more than most people you will meet if you ask honestly the questions of what is money and what is wrong with money then it becomes clear that money given to everyone so that they can live (basic income) is almost not money at all. It certainly wouldn't come with the servitude, competition and mindless drudgery which many of us experience with current 'money'. These differences are actually significant in the way they make people behave.

I could continue but I doubt anyone will read this to begin with.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
9/11/2019

I agree, this gung-ho mentality seems anti-productive to the goal of an RBE. About 2 or 3 years back the Money Free Party was putting out articles and videos about the need for the masses to suffer in order to "Wake them up" to the RBE ideas. One of the most popular articles was called "Universal Basic Serfdom" and talks of this need for the masses and the poor to "Feel the pinch". Fun little way for advocating the starvation, deprivation and likely deaths of millions of people who happen to be on the very bottom, in the most vulnerable position of our society. As Pia Alicia-Pilar Mogollon pointed out to me, this process of capitalism "collapsing" will affect the poor the most, as the well off, the capitalists have resources to avoid the worst consequences of their own actions. Aside from that fact, it needs to be recognized that part of the darkness of capitalism, one of its worst strengths is that it is thriving most when it is in a state of "collapse". That be how it rolls. Capitalism thrives upon desperation, chaos, conflict and problems to be fixed. The more problems, ailments and discord capitalism is able to create the better it is able to subvert people into its own ideology.

I know that Peter Joseph is not the sole spokesperson for RBE advocates but I do admire his view of the need for a transition. In his book "The New Human Rights Movement" he mentions UBI as one of the steps of transition.

Luckily this Gung-ho,"RBE Now or nothing else" way of thinking is not shared by all RBE advocates.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So much more should be said on this. Colin Turner himself halfway recognizes the fact that human behavior is a product of the social environment, which is the core realization that mandates an RBE in the first place. The mainstream is still busy believing that "Human Nature" is greedy, selfish, competitive, aggressive, violent and so on... that there is nothing to be done but lock people up who offend and hope for the best, try to grab what you can for yourself and your family, don't help anyone because it will make them lazy and they will take advantage. This is the mainstream current "Zeitgeist" and it is also at the core of justifications for capitalism.


The RBE train of thought, whether it be TVP or TZM or other is the new realization of human behavior being a result of the environment, as I have already been talking about. But this is an important point, the most important. It is a point which Colin knows because he, like the rest of us know that a sane society, a compassionate, intelligent society, an RBE will create humans accordingly, that are creative, compassionate, intelligent, collaborative, etc...


So if one believes this, then how can they not see the reverse??? That further scarcity and further desperation will only cause people to hunker down deeper into the "me first" competitive ignorance? More and worse hatred of "immigrants, patriotic fervor, dogmas, people taking refuge in religious fantasies and cults, shooting and violence, liberals talking of harsher gun restrictions as a cure-all, and far worse leaders than Trump. This is what "the peasants" feeling the pinch has in store for us if the "collapse" of capitalism (with its increased suffering for the poor) is cheered on as the only transition plan.


By this logic:
Run out and burn down food banks, lobby to abolish foodstamps and housing assistance! Let the poor really suffer!! Then they will magically become enlightened to the RBE train of thought even quicker! And those of us with trust funds or paradise like properties in New Zealand can emerge from the ashes to enjoy our utopia, the earth washed clean by the blood of the "peasants". Their sacrifice will be remembered and we will sing songs of their sorrows during our feasts that celebrate our new world!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
9/12/2019

You talk about what is the likely condition for people to "arrive to the conclusion that society doesn't need money to function?"

Was Peter Joseph living in a state of starvation and desperation when he became convinced of RBE concepts?

Was Jaques Fresco living in a state of starvation and desperation when he came up with the RBE concept?

Was Federico Pistono living in a state of starvation and desperation when he joined TZM and began advocating for the RBE?

Was Charles Eisenstein living in a state of starvation and desperation when he became convinced of a money free world and "Sacred Economics"?

Were P. J. Proudhon or Peter Kropotkin living in a state of starvation and desperation when they became convinced of the need for an Anarcho-Communist society that has no money, private property, war or inequality, hierarchy or government?

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/