Well, I have a deep vein of hatred for all references. In my line of work it's the dumbest most tedious part of my job.
"Oh? You'd like to talk to one of my hand-picked references about the software that I'm picking them to talk to you about?" Three times?
Do you think you'll learn anything in this day of you-tube videos and tech-sites rating my software? I can see from LinkedIn that you are connected to about a dozen of my other customers... some of them like our software, some don't. You should check with your network, not mine. Or have you not updated your procurement process/spreadsheet from 1992?
For students? Increasingly I'm thinking that a simple testing regime plus a grade rating system (like WAR that accounts difference in ballparks but for grade inflation and school systems) plus a lottery system should be the new admissions regime (at least for state schools). Just pure luck based on minimal qualifications.
Oh, um, well, that should probably settle everything down...
"What there might not be much of a market for anymore is, well, you - college educated, urban, upwardly striving if not economically improving, woke, ironic, and selling that wokeness and that irony as your only product. Because you flooded the market. Everyone in your entire industry is selling the exact same thing, tired sarcastic jokes and bleating righteousness about injustices they don’t suffer under themselves"
... I can feel the waves of self-reflection and self-awareness washing over his critics as my keyboard clicks its mechanical clacks.
Public sins, private forgiveness, virtue/vice, actions/consequences... death, judgement, heaven and hell?
These are all things as old as dirt... it isn't that we get them wrong, but that I'm increasingly reading people who think they are getting them right. That's the distressing point; the point Ms. Bruenig tries unsuccessfully to make to the people who know they've figured out this who public morality thing.
My crypto-catholic thought for the day is that everyone should read the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy and recognize that the only thing worse than penance is the lack of penance.
Sure... I think the pandemic has exposed some interesting issues in work/society. I suspect that some of what is happening with Schools and Teachers is a reckoning with a deep alienation between K-12 Teachers and the Profession of Teaching.
Not that Teachers don't like to teach, but that K-12 Teaching has become somewhat burdensome as an institution, and the hardship of remote teaching is somewhat less than the exposed hardship of institutional teaching.
Similar too with work vs. remote work. Not that folks don't miss some aspects of the community of work, but that working from home has exposed an unexpected level of alienation from work, in general.
But those would be examples of trying to solve social problems with biological tools.
Masks are a communitarian problem, vaccines less so.
The mask is the classic prior-restraint of my liberties so that your liberties my flourish, and thereby mine as well.
Vaccines are efficacious for *my* protection, so a rational libertarian position would be to get one and damn the others.
The edge case... which everyone is prematurely arguing... is what happens if we have really good vaccine uptake, but not perfect uptake. Do we care if 90% are vaccinated? 80%, 75%, 65%? Is coronavirus a smallpox event that requires eradication or a rubella event which suggests mitigation? At which point we're looking at further edge cases of herd-immunity with the possibility of folks who can't take the vaccine... what level of communal risk are we associating with that?
With millions lining up for vaccinations daily, over 33% vaccinated to date, and insufficient doses for the population wanting them... it's too soon to go full frontal on an (over-)aggressive vaccination policy that is better served by making the simple non-communitarian argument that it is in *your* best interest to get vaccinated. Get vaccinated, get back to life. The odd hostage taking I'm seeing in the public vaccination discussion is disturbing.
I think we are... I'm saying that Trump squandered an oppty for National Conservatism *and* Biden is squandering an oppty to make a case for a stronger National Health program.
Though, I suppose its possible to say that Biden isn't interested in Medicare for All or some such. In which case, fine, he's just running downhill on this whole Covid thing and indifferent to the oppty. In which case, similar to Trump, his indifference to things others in his party might care about is the thing squandered.
BUT... we aren't using the PANDEMIC as a reason to change how FDA/CDC/etc. approve Miracle Drugs that are doing miracles in the UK.
So... if the goal is to use the crisis to further a policy objective of more National Leadership in Healthcare... then show that change is better than Day-to-Day.
I mean, I don't think we're really disagreeing... just that if you write it out, it looks pretty obvious that we're just going to do the same-old-same-old and try to spin this as some sort of Biden policy win... but then wonder why people don't really credit 'The Win' the way we think they ought to. Especially when it gets trotted out as 'remember how we beat Covid... this is why we need National Healthcare'
I'm fine with Replacement-Level-Theory... if even Trump can deliver replacement level results... and Biden's 100M vaccinations in 100 days is literally the run-rate of Replacement-level-Trump on the day he took office. Then agreed... what's there to replace?
I see, that's a throw-away for what I take to be a self-apparent train of thought: Most everyone assumes that Medicare for all will be Medicare quality - which might be sellable to the 156M Americans who have Employer Insurance. And, it sounds like a possible upgrade to the 75M who have Medicaide.
But... if the proposal were to change from Medicare for all to Medicaid for All... or worse, VA for All... then you see support plummet.
Right now our Pandemic experience feels like a VA experience... the goal is to upgrade it to a Medicare experience.
Eh, Trump bought 100M doses of Pfizer and Moderna ... two totally unproven and new technologies... without care for cost (hey, it's other people's money)... or, really, safety. That's Trumpian.
August 11, 2020
"The U.S. government has agreed to buy 100 million doses of Moderna's experimental coronavirus vaccine for $1.5 billion, or $15 per dose.
Why it matters: The Trump administration, through Operation Warp Speed, has now bought initial batches of vaccines from Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi, Pfizer, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca before knowing whether they are safe and effective. The federal government also appears to own some of the patent rights associated with Moderna's vaccine."
On lots of levels, that's just stupid... and had it gone differently, so obviously Trumpian we'd be adding it to the list of things Trumpianly stupid.
Heh, barefoot is for the tree climbing and exploring/tracking... his (hand-)axe is real, but more of a narrow hammer than cutting implement, only useful for chonking rotting stumps; but yes, for that he's shod. Don't lose any sleep on our account. :-)
[LF2] Contrarian thought for the day... Just as Trump failed to build a response/program for the Pandemic that would have highlighted the benefits of a 'National Conservatism' so too is Biden failing to showcase why a 'National Healthcare' response would be more like Medicare (which people like) and less like Medicaid (which they don't) ... the vaccine roll-out highlights the fundamental gap between National policy and actual delivery... and worse, emphasizes the things people fear about Nationalized medicine... bad technology, centralized decisions that say one thing but do another, the obvious politicization in the name of non-politicization, and just bad execution - of, if you prefer, executing at the exact level of Trump while claiming to do something better than Trump.
Sure... it's perfectly fine to say: We weren't prepared for this, and we don't have a National Healthcare program... if only we did. My point is, this is the opportunity to impress... to win converts. The pandemic (among other things sank Trump) it risks setting back National Healthcare support. That's the trajectory... there's maybe time to turn things around but if this is an audition/opportunity for a National Healthcare response, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, a crisis wasted.
In the end, the heroes will be Capitalism, Big Pharma, Trumpian vs. EU Techocratic investments/control, and CVS/Non-Medical delivery systems. The *idea* that we'll want an EU type system to deliver health-care? Whelp... put that dog down.
Congrats on y'all's upcoming jab. A corner turned, or turned in about a month.
I'm not really in any risk categories... I was able to qualify for one of the absurd BMI qualifications as, I guess, Dad Bod who eats maybe a little too much sodium... so I'm in that category. I suppose that means May when President Biden promised... My wife who's out and about keeping local in person Catholic education in motion can't seem to get a vaccine appointment owing to the well known technological limitations of scheduling things more than a single day in advance.
This weekend the 6-yo and I will go out into our woods to clear the trails of windfall... maybe do battle against the various invasive species while I can see the forest floor and not get my tractor stuck or destroy the bushhog on hidden rocks/stumps. He likes to chop deadwood with his axe, look for nuts and flowers... and try to identify fauna tracks. Often barefoot.
Sometimes you get to do both... hate the policies and hate the man.
But sure, if you'd like to open up space for the idea that there's a 'momento mori' sort of humor that might have existed in the hey day of Johnny Carson... I'll allow it.
But that's maybe the change you're asking about... when did we shift from reminding our politicians that they are mortal and therefore mockable to comedy being part of the policy arm of the Arc of History? And moving from the Arc of History to simply backing a single party? That's a move that accelerated throughout my lifetime... starting in the 70's and reaching a highpoint(?) today where it is too dangerous to the project to even remind our politicians (of the right party) that they are mortal and therefore mockable.
Understood; my point is that it's a calibration question that I'm not sure is going to be calibrated... that is, if revenues are going down *and* maintenance is going down, then we don't necessarily have a problem. But, if revenues are going down and the goal is to make sure that revenues don't go down... then we'll calibrate for revenues not going down.
But there's also a problem that revenues go down faster than maintenance goes down... so we have to subsidize the non-use.
But of course we don't make fun of Presidents to make fun of Presidents... we make fun of policies of which the Presidents are avatars. So, as Andrew pointed out in the gloss on the quotation... there are a thousand vectors from which you can goof on Biden; if only we could find one thing with which we disagreed. Or, risk that disagreeing with one thing might bring all the other things down. We can't risk it. Comedy was never about risks... it was always about policy.
I have to assume that everyone knows that we're going to live with 'that virulent strain' of flu that has higher mortality than the ordinary strains - which are still lethal (two of my uncles died in 2019 from 'the flu')... but after vaccinations the risk will be acceptable. Still, an unfortunate fact of the human condition... but not something we're going to 'eradicate'. Right? Everyone knows that, yes?
... and, as the kids say, LOL
“when can we have a large group gathering with everyone we know and have it *GUARANTEED* that the only reason someone died is the gender reveal party?”
There are no supply chains in the state of nature.
Slightly more seriously... the thing modern Distributist economics is trying to preserve is the incentive for doing the thing well; it recognizes that most things without proper incentives will be done poorly; let us work on (re-)aligning incentives so that things are done well and the incentives allocate the rewards more broadly such that things will be done even weller... and so forth in a virtuous circle to utopia (alright, I'll stop now).
I applaud the bold leftist thinking; I'd like to see more... but I'm not sure unreconstructed Rousseau is better than unreconstructed 70's Social Democracy.
The ways are fairly simple; the will is very much not there.
Corporate charters are what we grant them in law; we can define and re-define the rules of the game as needed; creating 30% (say) equity stake for Labor and the concomitant rules governing the nature and relationship of that stake to the 70% capital stake is just another step in the evolution of the regulations we already have for corporations and share distribution.
This happens all the time, too... it would be a re-pricing event where new stakeholders are dealt into the structure; a dilution of existing capital... and I don't mean to pooh-pooh the impact or the challenges and concerns we'd need to account for - especially if done all at once (not necessarily what I'd advocate for) in some sort of big bang. But the fundamental idea that dilution and expansion of equity holders take place against the wishes of some factions of shareholders is simply commonplace.
Part of the necessary 'sell-job' would be emphasizing the projected gains of this infusion of 'sweat capital' to productivity and 'shareholder value.' Ultimately it's an expansion of the pie, not a tax/redistribution scheme.
Right... would change all sorts of calculi. Not sure I'd categorize it as 'union control' of the shares... but I wouldn't have a problem with organized factions of labor supporting different (or the same) Board Members and/or policies.
And that's just one structural change that would alter the dynamic while preserving (or even enhancing) many of the strengths of corporations.
Management has moved out of Wage compensation into Equity compensation... Labor has to move as well.
UBI has some possible benefits, but it won't do what people think it will do vis-a-vis Labor's compensation for both increasing productivity and lost compensation owing to automation. My optimistic take is that it opens up some space for other de-coupling events, but my pessimistic take is that UBI quickly becomes Guaranteed Jobs... which softly elides into a sort of wage-slavery. All with the best intentions, of course.
Basically, collective bargaining is too little too late... we need to re-open corporate charters and renegotiate the fundamental compact to both preserve 'capitalism' and rebalance/restructure the distribution of productivity gains.
Further, my meta-critique is that debating minimum wage is *exactly* the debate capital wants to have... we're debating a marginal, fixed, labor tax... that's conceding the game from the start; it could be justified on grounds that it needs updating/indexing... fine... but it isn't a 'win' in terms of fixing the long-term structural issues.
I'll take the hit on, "hey, these are the current pathways open to us" but the absence of updated policy objectives, coupled with a doubling down on 1970's social democracy makes me despair the paucity of thought on the left.
On “Within the Sarcophagus of Virtue”
Well, I have a deep vein of hatred for all references. In my line of work it's the dumbest most tedious part of my job.
"Oh? You'd like to talk to one of my hand-picked references about the software that I'm picking them to talk to you about?" Three times?
Do you think you'll learn anything in this day of you-tube videos and tech-sites rating my software? I can see from LinkedIn that you are connected to about a dozen of my other customers... some of them like our software, some don't. You should check with your network, not mine. Or have you not updated your procurement process/spreadsheet from 1992?
For students? Increasingly I'm thinking that a simple testing regime plus a grade rating system (like WAR that accounts difference in ballparks but for grade inflation and school systems) plus a lottery system should be the new admissions regime (at least for state schools). Just pure luck based on minimal qualifications.
"
Oh, um, well, that should probably settle everything down...
"What there might not be much of a market for anymore is, well, you - college educated, urban, upwardly striving if not economically improving, woke, ironic, and selling that wokeness and that irony as your only product. Because you flooded the market. Everyone in your entire industry is selling the exact same thing, tired sarcastic jokes and bleating righteousness about injustices they don’t suffer under themselves"
... I can feel the waves of self-reflection and self-awareness washing over his critics as my keyboard clicks its mechanical clacks.
"
Public sins, private forgiveness, virtue/vice, actions/consequences... death, judgement, heaven and hell?
These are all things as old as dirt... it isn't that we get them wrong, but that I'm increasingly reading people who think they are getting them right. That's the distressing point; the point Ms. Bruenig tries unsuccessfully to make to the people who know they've figured out this who public morality thing.
My crypto-catholic thought for the day is that everyone should read the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy and recognize that the only thing worse than penance is the lack of penance.
On “What Does Getting Vaccinated Have To Do With Freedom?”
Sure... I think the pandemic has exposed some interesting issues in work/society. I suspect that some of what is happening with Schools and Teachers is a reckoning with a deep alienation between K-12 Teachers and the Profession of Teaching.
Not that Teachers don't like to teach, but that K-12 Teaching has become somewhat burdensome as an institution, and the hardship of remote teaching is somewhat less than the exposed hardship of institutional teaching.
Similar too with work vs. remote work. Not that folks don't miss some aspects of the community of work, but that working from home has exposed an unexpected level of alienation from work, in general.
But those would be examples of trying to solve social problems with biological tools.
"
Masks are a communitarian problem, vaccines less so.
The mask is the classic prior-restraint of my liberties so that your liberties my flourish, and thereby mine as well.
Vaccines are efficacious for *my* protection, so a rational libertarian position would be to get one and damn the others.
The edge case... which everyone is prematurely arguing... is what happens if we have really good vaccine uptake, but not perfect uptake. Do we care if 90% are vaccinated? 80%, 75%, 65%? Is coronavirus a smallpox event that requires eradication or a rubella event which suggests mitigation? At which point we're looking at further edge cases of herd-immunity with the possibility of folks who can't take the vaccine... what level of communal risk are we associating with that?
With millions lining up for vaccinations daily, over 33% vaccinated to date, and insufficient doses for the population wanting them... it's too soon to go full frontal on an (over-)aggressive vaccination policy that is better served by making the simple non-communitarian argument that it is in *your* best interest to get vaccinated. Get vaccinated, get back to life. The odd hostage taking I'm seeing in the public vaccination discussion is disturbing.
On “Linky Friday: Hot, Cold, and Lukewarm Mess Edition”
I think we are... I'm saying that Trump squandered an oppty for National Conservatism *and* Biden is squandering an oppty to make a case for a stronger National Health program.
Though, I suppose its possible to say that Biden isn't interested in Medicare for All or some such. In which case, fine, he's just running downhill on this whole Covid thing and indifferent to the oppty. In which case, similar to Trump, his indifference to things others in his party might care about is the thing squandered.
"
Oops, misthreaded add-on to the InMD line.
"
But we have 100s of Millions of doses of a Miracle Vaccine that the EU could have had, but doesn't.
We even have 10's of Millions of the AZ vaccine that is working wonders in the UK!
BUT... we aren't using the PANDEMIC as a reason to change how FDA/CDC/etc. approve Miracle Drugs that are doing miracles in the UK.
So... if the goal is to use the crisis to further a policy objective of more National Leadership in Healthcare... then show that change is better than Day-to-Day.
I mean, I don't think we're really disagreeing... just that if you write it out, it looks pretty obvious that we're just going to do the same-old-same-old and try to spin this as some sort of Biden policy win... but then wonder why people don't really credit 'The Win' the way we think they ought to. Especially when it gets trotted out as 'remember how we beat Covid... this is why we need National Healthcare'
"
I'm fine with Replacement-Level-Theory... if even Trump can deliver replacement level results... and Biden's 100M vaccinations in 100 days is literally the run-rate of Replacement-level-Trump on the day he took office. Then agreed... what's there to replace?
"
I see, that's a throw-away for what I take to be a self-apparent train of thought: Most everyone assumes that Medicare for all will be Medicare quality - which might be sellable to the 156M Americans who have Employer Insurance. And, it sounds like a possible upgrade to the 75M who have Medicaide.
But... if the proposal were to change from Medicare for all to Medicaid for All... or worse, VA for All... then you see support plummet.
Right now our Pandemic experience feels like a VA experience... the goal is to upgrade it to a Medicare experience.
"
Eh, Trump bought 100M doses of Pfizer and Moderna ... two totally unproven and new technologies... without care for cost (hey, it's other people's money)... or, really, safety. That's Trumpian.
August 11, 2020
"The U.S. government has agreed to buy 100 million doses of Moderna's experimental coronavirus vaccine for $1.5 billion, or $15 per dose.
Why it matters: The Trump administration, through Operation Warp Speed, has now bought initial batches of vaccines from Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi, Pfizer, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca before knowing whether they are safe and effective. The federal government also appears to own some of the patent rights associated with Moderna's vaccine."
On lots of levels, that's just stupid... and had it gone differently, so obviously Trumpian we'd be adding it to the list of things Trumpianly stupid.
On “Weekend Plans Post: A Year Of Quarantine”
Heh, barefoot is for the tree climbing and exploring/tracking... his (hand-)axe is real, but more of a narrow hammer than cutting implement, only useful for chonking rotting stumps; but yes, for that he's shod. Don't lose any sleep on our account. :-)
On “Linky Friday: Hot, Cold, and Lukewarm Mess Edition”
[LF2] Contrarian thought for the day... Just as Trump failed to build a response/program for the Pandemic that would have highlighted the benefits of a 'National Conservatism' so too is Biden failing to showcase why a 'National Healthcare' response would be more like Medicare (which people like) and less like Medicaid (which they don't) ... the vaccine roll-out highlights the fundamental gap between National policy and actual delivery... and worse, emphasizes the things people fear about Nationalized medicine... bad technology, centralized decisions that say one thing but do another, the obvious politicization in the name of non-politicization, and just bad execution - of, if you prefer, executing at the exact level of Trump while claiming to do something better than Trump.
Sure... it's perfectly fine to say: We weren't prepared for this, and we don't have a National Healthcare program... if only we did. My point is, this is the opportunity to impress... to win converts. The pandemic (among other things sank Trump) it risks setting back National Healthcare support. That's the trajectory... there's maybe time to turn things around but if this is an audition/opportunity for a National Healthcare response, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, a crisis wasted.
In the end, the heroes will be Capitalism, Big Pharma, Trumpian vs. EU Techocratic investments/control, and CVS/Non-Medical delivery systems. The *idea* that we'll want an EU type system to deliver health-care? Whelp... put that dog down.
On “Weekend Plans Post: A Year Of Quarantine”
Congrats on y'all's upcoming jab. A corner turned, or turned in about a month.
I'm not really in any risk categories... I was able to qualify for one of the absurd BMI qualifications as, I guess, Dad Bod who eats maybe a little too much sodium... so I'm in that category. I suppose that means May when President Biden promised... My wife who's out and about keeping local in person Catholic education in motion can't seem to get a vaccine appointment owing to the well known technological limitations of scheduling things more than a single day in advance.
This weekend the 6-yo and I will go out into our woods to clear the trails of windfall... maybe do battle against the various invasive species while I can see the forest floor and not get my tractor stuck or destroy the bushhog on hidden rocks/stumps. He likes to chop deadwood with his axe, look for nuts and flowers... and try to identify fauna tracks. Often barefoot.
On “Game of Thrones: The Awesomization of Sam Tarly”
I think I appreciate the inter-textual analysis the most, because at this point I can't even begin to keep book details from TV details straight.
On “Not Talking About My Generation”
Typical.
On “Ordinary World: Ides of March Edition”
I've always said that you can only really satirize something you love... once you stop loving it? The satire falls flat.
We're in the high-point of sarcasm, which is the low-point of satire.
"
Sometimes you get to do both... hate the policies and hate the man.
But sure, if you'd like to open up space for the idea that there's a 'momento mori' sort of humor that might have existed in the hey day of Johnny Carson... I'll allow it.
But that's maybe the change you're asking about... when did we shift from reminding our politicians that they are mortal and therefore mockable to comedy being part of the policy arm of the Arc of History? And moving from the Arc of History to simply backing a single party? That's a move that accelerated throughout my lifetime... starting in the 70's and reaching a highpoint(?) today where it is too dangerous to the project to even remind our politicians (of the right party) that they are mortal and therefore mockable.
On “Vehicle Miles-Traveled (VMT) Tax”
Understood; my point is that it's a calibration question that I'm not sure is going to be calibrated... that is, if revenues are going down *and* maintenance is going down, then we don't necessarily have a problem. But, if revenues are going down and the goal is to make sure that revenues don't go down... then we'll calibrate for revenues not going down.
But there's also a problem that revenues go down faster than maintenance goes down... so we have to subsidize the non-use.
On “Ordinary World: Ides of March Edition”
But of course we don't make fun of Presidents to make fun of Presidents... we make fun of policies of which the Presidents are avatars. So, as Andrew pointed out in the gloss on the quotation... there are a thousand vectors from which you can goof on Biden; if only we could find one thing with which we disagreed. Or, risk that disagreeing with one thing might bring all the other things down. We can't risk it. Comedy was never about risks... it was always about policy.
"
I have to assume that everyone knows that we're going to live with 'that virulent strain' of flu that has higher mortality than the ordinary strains - which are still lethal (two of my uncles died in 2019 from 'the flu')... but after vaccinations the risk will be acceptable. Still, an unfortunate fact of the human condition... but not something we're going to 'eradicate'. Right? Everyone knows that, yes?
... and, as the kids say, LOL
“when can we have a large group gathering with everyone we know and have it *GUARANTEED* that the only reason someone died is the gender reveal party?”
On “Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2021: Read It For Yourself”
There are no supply chains in the state of nature.
Slightly more seriously... the thing modern Distributist economics is trying to preserve is the incentive for doing the thing well; it recognizes that most things without proper incentives will be done poorly; let us work on (re-)aligning incentives so that things are done well and the incentives allocate the rewards more broadly such that things will be done even weller... and so forth in a virtuous circle to utopia (alright, I'll stop now).
I applaud the bold leftist thinking; I'd like to see more... but I'm not sure unreconstructed Rousseau is better than unreconstructed 70's Social Democracy.
"
The ways are fairly simple; the will is very much not there.
Corporate charters are what we grant them in law; we can define and re-define the rules of the game as needed; creating 30% (say) equity stake for Labor and the concomitant rules governing the nature and relationship of that stake to the 70% capital stake is just another step in the evolution of the regulations we already have for corporations and share distribution.
This happens all the time, too... it would be a re-pricing event where new stakeholders are dealt into the structure; a dilution of existing capital... and I don't mean to pooh-pooh the impact or the challenges and concerns we'd need to account for - especially if done all at once (not necessarily what I'd advocate for) in some sort of big bang. But the fundamental idea that dilution and expansion of equity holders take place against the wishes of some factions of shareholders is simply commonplace.
Part of the necessary 'sell-job' would be emphasizing the projected gains of this infusion of 'sweat capital' to productivity and 'shareholder value.' Ultimately it's an expansion of the pie, not a tax/redistribution scheme.
"
Right... would change all sorts of calculi. Not sure I'd categorize it as 'union control' of the shares... but I wouldn't have a problem with organized factions of labor supporting different (or the same) Board Members and/or policies.
And that's just one structural change that would alter the dynamic while preserving (or even enhancing) many of the strengths of corporations.
"
Equity.
Management has moved out of Wage compensation into Equity compensation... Labor has to move as well.
UBI has some possible benefits, but it won't do what people think it will do vis-a-vis Labor's compensation for both increasing productivity and lost compensation owing to automation. My optimistic take is that it opens up some space for other de-coupling events, but my pessimistic take is that UBI quickly becomes Guaranteed Jobs... which softly elides into a sort of wage-slavery. All with the best intentions, of course.
Basically, collective bargaining is too little too late... we need to re-open corporate charters and renegotiate the fundamental compact to both preserve 'capitalism' and rebalance/restructure the distribution of productivity gains.
Further, my meta-critique is that debating minimum wage is *exactly* the debate capital wants to have... we're debating a marginal, fixed, labor tax... that's conceding the game from the start; it could be justified on grounds that it needs updating/indexing... fine... but it isn't a 'win' in terms of fixing the long-term structural issues.
I'll take the hit on, "hey, these are the current pathways open to us" but the absence of updated policy objectives, coupled with a doubling down on 1970's social democracy makes me despair the paucity of thought on the left.