[part 2]

>I fundamentally disagree on both points.

>While the USA does exist in a democratic system, there are many examples where businesses have overpowered the general population, or where those interests have turned groups of the population against each other. As far back as the founding of the US, white businessmen fought to restrict voting power away from the general population, and worked to pit working whites against enslaved blacks. In the Mexican-American war in 1846, business interests sought to clear a path across the continent to California, bulldozing Mexico in the process, using conscripted forces. Recent examples include nuking Japan to secure economic control under the USA, despite strong indications that Japan wanted to surrender, or the false-WMD pretense to invade Iraq for control of the region’s natural resources.

>Less extreme but still insidious examples include Citizens United, the slipshod state of campaign finance regulation, or modern tax code being fundamentally friendlier to the ultra-rich than the far larger middle- or lower-classes.

>Notably, “the population” is not a homogenous group, and can have flawed reasoning for reasons beyond conspiratorial interference. It’s still clear that “the population” has not been able to “self determine” in many ways, due to the interference of the wealthy elite.

I think perhaps you misunderstood what i meant here. What i meant was that each individual person had a choice as to whether or not they will work for someone, and for how much they will work for.

You may argue that they don't have alternative options that are better than "being exploited", but that would not change if that exploitative option were to be removed from them.

I was not making a comment on government policy.

>Secondly, I fundamentally disagree that a lack of motivation keeps people in the poverty cycle, and that providing UBI-like benefits would reduce their options.

>Are there people who will choose not to put in effort to take advantage of opportunities? Yes. Are there people who will 'exploit' e.g. unemployment benefits when they don't need them? Certainly.

>Is motivation the primary reason people exist within the poverty cycle? Absolutely not.

>How would those trapped in the poverty cycle work multiple low-paying, high-effort jobs where they have to deal with angry, entitled customers day after day, with little to no opportunity for advancement, and an entire economic system arrayed against them, if not for motivation?. I guarantee you that my middle-school video production teacher, who worked at Lowe's in addition to her job teaching at the worst school in our district, spends more of her time doing 'work' than any of the Walton family.

I have to completely disagree here, and I do not believe we will be able to find any common ground on this issue.

I have discussed personal finances with many people, and only a small minority as ever shown themselves to be willing to take the actions necessary to actually improve their lives, even when such actions are not particularly strenuous to them.

The idea that people are trapped in a cycle of poverty from which they cannot escape regardless of how much they try is a common one, but one that is simply not true. [4] The fact of the matter is that even when you're not exceptionally gifted or fortunate you have a good chance of moving up in income, and that chance has not meaningfully changed over long decades. It takes time, it takes effort, and sometimes it takes a bit of luck, but everyone has a decent chance to do it. Both the top and bottom quintiles in Income change regularly and dramatically over time.

[4] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Document...

>UBI would not remove their motivation to escape from the cycle of poverty; UBI would remove them from the cycle of poverty. They are no longer restricted to the maximally-exploitative job you've been hypothesizing, they can go to school, go into construction, decide to become an artist. If their activities end up not being economically-valuable in the capitalistic sense, who cares? So long as we have sufficient people to turn the wheels of the systems the population depends on (which should be trivially easy between the supply of people motivated to do so and a mild incentive to engage in those systems, i.e. a reasonable wage) it doesn't matter what these people choose to do.

And what of the people turning the wheels? Why should they be sacrificed?

Ultimately every dollar given in benefits is taken from a productive person who could have put it to better use.

>The labor movement of the ~1910s in the US has plenty of examples of where raising the minimum wage--or in some cases, instituting one--in fact did not result in the loss of jobs, but the creation of them, and the ability for people to become more upwardly mobile in terms of socioeconomic status--at the same time that businesses were fighting tooth and nail (literally assaulting strikers and labor group organizers) to prevent people from achieving those gains.

Except unfortunately that is just not true, mathematics does not work that way and neither does the economy. [5]

[5] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-wage-wo...

Minimum wages always cost jobs, except if the wage is so low that no one is affected by it.

Not only that, but by implementing minimum wages you're reducing the most important tool someone has to acquire a job experience, and eventually move himself out of a poor and desperate situation. And furthermore minimum wages, and other government regulation benefits the large companies that you are complaining about, by creating meaningful barriers to competitors and reducing their competitive advantages. There is a reason why amazon wants a 15/hr minimum wage, and it's not because they are a kind hearted company.

>While I can understand and am aware of circumstances where "regulations" are indeed frivolous and impinge development, I am not convinced that age restrictions and licensing requirements are the core things at fault for others stuck in poverty cycles. The implication that they are somehow at fault is to completely ignore the exploitative nature of the businesses which recklessly endangered their workers--including children!--when they weren't subject to these kinds of regulation.

Have you ever tried to build a house?

I have, and it's almost impossible. In order for me to build a 200K€ house I would need to spent 60K€ on licenses, taxes, fees, etc...

The result is i cannot own a house.

Every regulation creates friction and additional costs. Those costs are often hidden, but they are there, and they make everything we do more expensive, slower, and less efficient.

If you would like to define a certain value for life, and apply it equality and in a standard manner to everything, then maybe we might be able to begin work on clearing regulations and implementing others. But the incentive structure simply isn't there for such a system, and neither is such a system reliably stable over long periods.