Something for Nothing

Renewed twin memes Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Debt Jubilees (DJ) have been in the news recently. I write renewed because the two ideas are quite literally ancient, unlearnt lessons that are enjoying revitalized interest in the 21st century. Both are capable of sophisticated support from historical and contemporary study, which I admit I haven’t undertaken. However, others have done the work and make their recommendations with considerable authority. For instance, Andrew Yang, interviewed repeatedly as a 2020 U.S. presidential candidate, has made UBI the centerpiece of his policy proposals, whereas Michael Hudson has a new book out called … and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption — From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year that offers a forgotten history of DJ.

Whenever UBI or DJ comes up in conversation, the most obvious, predicable response I hear (containing a kernel of truth) is that either proposal would reward the losers in today’s capitalist regime: those who earn too little or those who carry too much debt (often a combination of both). Never mind that quality education and economic opportunities have been steadily withdrawn over the past half century. UBI and DJ would thus be giveaways, and I daresay nothing offends a sense of fairness more than others getting something for nothing. Typical resentment goes, “I worked hard, played by the rules, and met my responsibilities; why should others who slacked, failed, or cheated get the benefit of my hard work?” It’s a commonplace “othering” response, failing to recognize that as societies we are completely interconnected and interdependent. Granting the winners in the capitalist contest a pass on fair play is also a major assumption. The most iconic supreme winners are all characterized by shark-like business practices: taking advantage of tax loopholes, devouring everything, and shrewdly understanding their predatory behavior not in terms of producing value but rather as gobbling or destroying competition to gain market share. More than a few companies these days are content to operate for years on venture capital, reporting one quarterly loss after another until rivals are vanquished. Amazon.com is the test case, though how many times its success can be repeated is unknown.

With my relative lack of economic study and sophistication, I take my lessons instead from the children’s game Monopoly. As an oversimplification of the dynamics of capital formation and ownership, Monopoly even for children reaches its logical conclusion well before its actual end, where one person “wins” everything. The balancing point when the game is no longer worth playing is debatable, but some have found through experience the answer is “before it starts.” It’s just no fun destroying bankrupting other players utterly through rent seeking. The no-longer-fun point is analogous to late-stage capitalism, where the conclusion has not yet been fully reached but is nonetheless clear. The endgame is, in a word, monopoly — the significant element being “mono,” as in there can be only one winner. (Be careful what you wish for: it’s lonely and resentful at the top.) Others take a different, aspirational lesson from Monopoly, which is to figure out game dynamics, or game the game, so that the world can be taken by force. One’s growing stranglehold on others disallows fair negotiation and cooperation (social rather than capitalist values) precisely because one party holds all the advantages, leading to exploitation of the many for the benefit of a few (or one).

Another unlearnt ancient lesson is that nothing corrupts so easily or so much as success, power, fame, wealth. Many accept that corruption willingly; few take the lesson to heart. (Disclosure: I’ve sometimes embarked on the easy path to wealth by buying lottery tickets. Haven’t won, so I’m not corruptible yet corrupted. Another case of something for nearly nothing, or for those gambling away their rent and grocery money, nothing for something.) Considering that money makes the world go around, especially in the modern age, the dynamics of capitalism are inescapable and the internal contradictions of capitalism are well acknowledged. The ancient idea of DJ is essentially a reset button depressed before the endgame leads to rebellion and destruction of the ownership class. Franklin D. Roosevelt is credited in some accounts of history as having saved capitalism from that near endgame by transferring wealth back to the people through the New Deal and the war economy. Thus, progressives are calling for a Green New Deal, though it’s not clear they are aware that propping up capitalism only delays its eventual collapse through another couple cycles (reversals) of capital flow. Availability of cheap, plentiful energy that allowed economies (and populations) to balloon over the past two and one-half centuries cannot continue for much longer, so even if we get UBI or DJ, the endgame remains unchanged.