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The specter of automation haunts the US ruling elite just as much as it haunts workers, albeit for different reasons. Working people are perpetually worried that one day their job will no longer exist. Jobs are automating at a rapid pace, with nearly forty percent of all labor in the US at risk of being replaced with robotic technology by 2030. Capital owners and investors are worried about the trend. Automation’s downward pressure on wages places the capitalist system at risk of collapse. The concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been floated as a possible solution to the crisis of capitalism.

The logic of UBI goes something like this. Cash would be paid to an individual each year regardless of employment, age, or income. Left-wing arguments for the policy center on funding an expanded version of social security with higher taxes on corporations and the rich. Conservative advocates of UBI point to the use of a negative income tax to replace social programs. The negative income tax would pay individuals a lump sum of money depending on their annual earnings. This amount would gradually lower depending on one's individual earnings.

Much of the discussion about the prospect of a Universal Basic Income has failed to explain how the policy could be applied in the real world. A basic income would be a hefty price for the capitalist state, requiring a steep tax increase on the wealthy. Capitalism has been unwilling to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund anything, not even war. Top income-earners maintain a favorable tax policy to underwrite large corporate debts. The burden of federal spending has been levied on the poor, whether in the form of taxes or reductions in social programs.

These contextual issues with UBI just skim the surface of the problems it poses for the world capitalist system. The implementation of UBI assumes that capitalist production will one day occur without human labor. This is where a return to Marxist economic theory is instructive. As Marxist economist Ernest Mandel summarizes, capitalism cannot automate entirely lest the system lose the very source of all value. The amount of labor time necessary to produce a given product is what determines its exchange value. Without labor, exchange value disappears.

Advanced technology has blurred the contradictions of the economic system. As technology continues to rapidly develop, the possibility that robots will take over all aspects of the labor process becomes more and more possible. However, this places the capitalist system in a dead-end. How will capitalists ascribe value to their products? How will they extract surplus value from robots? These are but some of the questions that UBI advocates have not answered.

A basic income for all would, in theory, enhance the standard of living for a large section of the population. Unemployed and underemployed workers currently rely on a non-existent social welfare system to meet their needs. Means-tested benefits, whether in the form of food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid, fail to lift people out of poverty. At best, these benefits subsidize the profits of some of the largest monopoly corporations by levying the cost of basic needs to the state. Workers and poor people are in desperate need of more cash in their pockets. Yet accumulating profit in the form of unpaid labor time is exactly what defines the capitalist system.

The discussion of UBI must move from theory to practice. Capitalists such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg see UBI as an opportunity to relieve overproduction in the system generally by giving workers more opportunity to invest in capital goods distributed by capital. Furthermore, a basic income could endanger public services that individual capitalists are eager to privatize. However, none of this explains how the capitalist system would extract surplus value from a Universal Basic Income. It should be expected that the profits of the capitalists will be protected at all costs. Universal Basic Income or not, the race to the bottom experienced by workers and poor people will continue unabated.

Intense focus on the viability of the Universal Basic Income idea takes away from socialist-oriented demands. The biggest advocates of UBI have been largely absent in the fight for single payer healthcare, free public higher education, or the struggle for decent, affordable housing. Universal basic income also fails to tackle the roots of low-wages and unemployment. Alienation from the means of subsistence and production is the primary reason workers and poor people are vulnerable to changes in the world capitalist economy. Advanced technology is not inherently exploitative. It is the powerlessness of workers and poor people over the fruits of their labor that leaves them unable to survive in the age of rapid automation.

The demand for a Universal Basic Income should serve as a mechanism to both relieve the distress of the impoverished masses and help bring a greater understanding of the crisis of capitalism. Technology will never fully replace labor under the capitalist system, but it does breed more and more misery. Higher rates of productivity and rising production costs are placing a strain on capitalism's rate of profit. The more miserable life becomes for workers, the harder it is for the capitalist system to fend off an economic collapse from overproduction. Universal Basic Income is nothing more than an attempt to relieve pressure from the capitalist system. However, it can assume a progressive character if positioned between a movement to socialize production and eliminate the exploitation of labor, once and for all.

*(Art work courtesy of Renegadetribune.com)