24 UBI attacks capitalism at its core
For some leftists, a basic income is not “revolutionary” enough. We have seen in the previous reasons, that a universal basic income definitely has the potential to transform society towards communism. A basic income undermines the most fundamental mechanism of capitalism. What is this mechanism? Many people think it’s the money. But money is just the lubricant. It is more likely capital and capital is usually not present in the form of money but rather in the form of ownership of factories and other so-called means of production. If we look more closely, it is not the capital but the capital relationship: that on the one hand we have the ownership of the means of production and on the other hand we have a lot of people who have nothing else to sell but their labor power. It is precisely this relationship that allows capitalists to buy labor and then transform it into surplus value. This is the core of capitalism and this is exactly where the basic income comes in: It changes the second part of this equation: people are suddenly no longer forced to sell their labor at any price and thus the capitalists’ capital is immediately devalued: it is not so easy to propagate anymore. This is elegantly expressed in a footnote in the first volume of Capital:
First of all, Wakefield discovered that in the Colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines, and other means of production, does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if there be wanting the correlative — the wage-worker, the other man who is compelled to sell himself of his own free will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the instrumentality of things. Mr. Peel, he moans, took with him from England to Swan River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000. Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 300 persons of the working class, men, women, and children. Once arrived at his destination, “Mr. Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river.” Unhappy Mr. Peel who provided for everything except the export of English modes of production to Swan River - Karl Marx, Das Kapital
The fact that the basic income attacks capitalism at its core is both good and bad news: on the one hand, it means that the UBI has the potential to overcome it, but on the other hand, it also means that this will not be possible without resistance: that we will face strong resistance against the introduction of a UBI from the capitalist class. Despite all the lip-service of the rich tech tycoons, these people know very well that this is a real deal. So a basic income will not just come to us. We have to fight for it too. And when a basic income comes along, those in power will try to design it in such a way that it is stripped of all emancipatory elements.
Of course, “attacking at the core” does not necessarily mean “automatically overcoming”. As already said: the UBI creates conditions in which many things can be easily changed. Capitalism itself is a very complex and adaptable system and as Adorno said: “there is no right in wrong”. On the other hand, there are certainly ways that can lead us out of this system. The unconditional basic income is one of these ways.
