Even without UBI there’s people who sit in their ass and drink/smoke/watch TV/etc. But without UBI they are more prone to resort to petty theft or other antisocial activities to support that habit. UBI pilot programs have demonstrably shown a decrease in crime, because it removes one of the incentives for it.
I didn’t mean to imply that GDP should be replaced with another single metric, and I totally agree that doing so just perpetuates the cycle. Instead, my argument is that GDP should no longer be used as a metric of success, because its use has been bastardized. When “the economy” is doing better because more transactions are being made while class inequality is worsening and standards of living are dropping, then the measurement used is flawed.
one of the reasons we’re in this mess is oversimplification to just money as a metric.
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean!
Oh yeah, I’m not against UBI, with or without degrowth.
Now, the way I see it, the article starts with explaining why degrowth is necessary (sustainability), then focuses on what’s necessary to make degrowth practical (UBI). But degrowth as policy is only viable if we can measure its success, and GDP is not going to do that. So we need a new performance metric IMO, something like economic equilibrium (see what I did there?).
The problem is that economic growth has become the performance metric. You see the same happen at a smaller scale in companies, where a metric to measure performance ends up being the only target of the employer, instead of the actual task. For example, a call center may have a calls per day bonus, which means that most employees will be penalized for longer calls, leading them to be more pushy and cut corners, leading to customer dissatisfaction with their experience.
In order to encourage degrowth the metric has to change. It is clear that GDP is no longer a sufficient measure, because it considers neither sustainability nor equality. But without an alternative measurement to replace it economists will reject degrowth as a successful strategy because they can’t see past the performance metrics they have accepted as a de facto standard.
What about loss of material due to evaporation? Sand batteries can retain their mass in an unsealed container, vs water batteries which would lose mass in an open container or be under dangerously high pressures in a sealed container.
Got to be careful with old cutlery and kitchenwares, and test for lead.
Primitive Technology.