IN HER new book Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work and Remake the World, Annie Lowrey — contributing editor for The Atlantic — lays out the case for implementing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the United States.
在她的新书“给人们钱：全民基本收入将如何结束贫困，革命的改变工作和重塑世界”，Annie Lowrey—“大西洋”的特约编辑—阐述了在美国实施全民基本收入（UBI）的案例。
She’s right to highlight the inability of the current system to provide a stable future for the majority of the country’s population, but her proposed solution is misguided and confused.
她正确的强调了现在的系统无法为该国大多数人提供稳定的未来，但她提出的解决方案是误导性的和混淆的。
In a chapter titled “Wages for Breathing,” Lowrey defines Universal Basic Income this way: “It is universal, in the sense that every resident of a given community or country receives [a check every month]. It is basic, in that it is just enough to live on and not more. And it is income.” She traces the idea of a UBI back to Tudor England, as well as the writings of Thomas Paine.
在一篇名为“用来呼吸的工资”的章节中，Lowrey以这种方式定义了全民基本收入：“它是普遍的，在某种意义上，某个社区或国家的每个居民每个月都会收到一张支票。这是基本的，因为它仅仅足够生存，没有更多。 然后这是收入。“她将UBI的想法追溯到都铎时期的英国，以及Thomas Paine的着作
What was once considered a fringe idea is now entering the political mainstream. Y Combinator Research, a California-based nonprofit organization, is piloting a UBI program in Oakland. The city of Chicago is reportedly considering a similar experiment. The California Democratic Party platform officially endorses a Universal Basic Income.
这个曾经被认为是边缘的想法现在正在进入政治主流。 总部位于加利福尼亚州的非营利组织Y Combinator Research正在奥克兰试行UBI计划。 据报道，芝加哥市正在考虑进行类似的实验。 加州民主党平台正式支持普遍基本收入。
Why is there growing interest in UBI, especially when we’re told by the corporate media and political establishment that the U.S. economy is booming? The answer is that, despite the rhetoric, most Americans realize that the system is fundamentally flawed and their needs aren’t being met.
为什么人们对UBI越来越感兴趣，尤其是当我们被企业媒体和政治机构告知美国经济正在蓬勃发展时？ 答案是，尽管有这些修辞，大多数美国人都意识到这个系统从根本上存在缺陷，而且他们的需求没有得到满足。
For 40 percent of Americans, a $400 emergency expense would wipe out their savings. Twenty-three percent of U.S. adults can’t pay their bills every month. Over 25% have reported that they had to forgo necessary medical care in the last year due to financial constraints.
对于40％的美国人来说，400美元的紧急开支就会耗尽他们的积蓄。 每月有23％的美国成年人无法支付账单。 超过25％的受访者表示，由于财政拮据，去年他们不得不放弃必要的医疗护理。
It’s understandable that people are searching for unorthodox solutions to the problems the free market clearly can’t solve.
可以理解的是，人们正在寻找非正统的解决方案来解决自由市场明显无法解决的问题。
LOWREY BEGINS Give People Money with a choice between two futures: the innovative, capitalist South Korea, which is piloting a UBI program, or the economically stagnant, totalitarian North Korea. She concludes her book with another false choice: the bleak, frightening dystopia of The Hunger Games or the high-tech, post-work utopia of The Jetsons.
LOWREY 在“给人们钱”中开始给出了两种未来之间的选择：创新的资本主义韩国，它正在试行UBI计划，或经济上停滞不前的极权主义朝鲜。 她用另一个错误的选择总结了她的书：饥饿游戏的凄凉，可怕的反乌托邦或者杰森斯的高科技，后工作乌托邦。
In his Jacobin article “The Case Against a Basic Income,” Daniel Zamora provides a more apt dichotomy with regard to UBI:
在Jacobin的文章“反对基本收入的案例”中，Daniel Zamora对UBI提出了更为恰当的二分法：
No existing economy can pay for a generous basic income without defunding everything else. We would either have to settle for the minimalist version — whose effects would be highly suspect — or we’d have to eliminate all other social expenditures, in effect creating Milton Friedman’s paradise.
没有现成的经济可以支付慷慨的基本收入而不会降低对其他一切的资助。我们要么必须满足于极简主义版本—其影响将非常可疑—或者我们必须消除所有其他社会支出，实际上创造了米尔顿弗里德曼的天堂。
This is not hyperbole, as Lowrey writes favorably of Friedman’s proposal for a UBI achieved via a negative income tax, which was also endorsed by Richard Nixon. The cost of this proposal, according to Lowrey, would be “almost the same amount as spending on the EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit], Supplemental Security Income, housing aid, food stamps, welfare and the school-lunch program.”
这并不夸张，因为Lowrey对弗里德曼提出的通过负所得税实现的UBI展现了喜爱，这也得到了理查德尼克松的支持。 根据Lowrey的说法，这项提案的成本将“与EITC [工资所得税抵免]，补充保障收入，住房援助，食品券，福利和学校午餐计划的支出几乎相同。”
Even the so-called “progressive” version of UBI — one championed by former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern — would “end ‘many of the current 126 welfare programs’ and cut Social Security to pay for such an initiative, along with hiking some unnamed taxes,” according to Lowrey.
甚至所谓的“进步的”UBI版本—由前服务员工国际联盟（SEIU）主席Andy Stern倡导—将“终结”当前126个福利计划中的许多计划，并削减社会保障支付这样的举措，以及增加一些没有命名的税收，“Lowrey说。
Such a gutting of the social safety net and betrayal of the gains won through hard struggle by generations of American workers would be a nightmare scenario — and a dream come true for a range of reactionaries.
这种对社会安全网的摧毁以及对几代美国工人通过艰苦斗争所获得的成果的背叛将是一场噩梦般的场景—一系列保守派的梦想成真。
Charles Murray, a right-wing proponent of UBI, calls for “eliminating the existing welfare state — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, Section 8, all of it, as well as corporate giveaways and subsidies for agriculture — and replacing it with an $833-a-month credit.”
UBI的右翼支持者Charles Murray呼吁“消除现有的福利国家—医疗保险，医疗补助，社会保障，福利，第8节，所有这些，以及企业捐赠和农业补贴——替代为每月833美元的信贷。“
While Lowrey does have some criticisms of Murray’s particular version of UBI, she presents it — along with Stern’s — as one of many proposals, concluding that “UBI is hardly a silver bullet.” Hardly indeed.
虽然Lowrey确实对Murray的特定版本的UBI有一些批评，但她将其——和Stern一起——作为众多提案中的一个提出，并得出结论“UBI几乎不是银弹。”实际上并非如此。
If Murray’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he is the co-author of the infamous 1994 book The Bell Curve, a debunked case for the correlation of race and intelligence. Not only does Lowrey give Murray a platform, but she makes no mention of his history of racist policy proposals and comments.
如果Murray的名字听起来很熟悉，那是因为他是臭名昭著的1994年著作“钟形曲线”的合著者，这是一个关于种族和智力相关性的被揭露的案例。 Lowrey不仅为Murray提供了一个平台，而且她没有提到他的种族主义政策提案和评论的历史。
Murray’s investment in the racial intelligence gap hypothesis has always informed his right-wing economic policies, including his opposition to affirmative action. To not mention of Murray’s racist past (and present) is misleading, especially when Lowrey’s book includes an entire chapter on the history of race in America.
Murray对种族智力差距假说的投资一直是他的右翼经济政策，包括他反对正面行动的依据。 没有提及Murray的种族主义过去（和现在）是误导性的，特别是当Lowrey的书中包含了关于美国种族历史的整个章节时。
Lowrey claims that UBI will help to heal America’s racial divide and bridge the wealth gap between white and Black Americans. Obviously, Murray is not a disinterested party in this conversation. But in the book, he is labeled with neutral descriptors like “libertarian economist” and “of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center think tank.”
Lowrey声称，UBI将有助于治愈美国的种族鸿沟，并弥合白人和黑人之间的贫富差距。 显然，Murray在这次谈话中不是一个没有利益牵扯的党派。但在书中，他被称为“自由主义经济学家”和“美国企业研究所，中心右派智库”等中性描述。
PERHAPS BECAUSE Lowrey seems to see UBI as a way to bridge the left-right divide, she is quick to name-drop the proposal’s ideologically diverse advocates, ranging from Silicon Valley CEOs and right-wing libertarians to progressive activists and self-proclaimed socialists. This idea that UBI transcends partisan politics is one of its biggest selling points.
也许因为Lowrey似乎认为UBI是一种弥合左右分歧的方式，她很快就会提名这个提议的意识形态多元化的倡导者，从硅谷的CEO和右翼自由主义者到进步活动家和自封的社会主义者。 UBI超越派系政治这一想法是其最大的卖点之一。
The broad appeal of the proposal, however, is primarily because of its ambiguity and abstraction. The devil is in the details.
然而，该提案的广泛吸引力主要是因为其含糊不清和抽象。魔鬼在细节中。
The fault lines become clear once the specifics of how to implement UBI in the U.S. are discussed. How much money should be given to each American every month? How will UBI be paid for? Will payments only be provided for citizens, or will undocumented immigrants also benefit from the program?
一旦讨论了如何在美国实施UBI的具体细节，故障线就会变得清晰。 每个月应该给每个美国人多少钱？ UBI将如何被支付？ 是否只为公民提供付款，或者无证移民是否也会受益于该计划？
When UBI evangelists provide detailed answers to these questions, the much-touted consensus withers away. While Lowrey does take a stance on one of these questions — she proposes $1,000 a month per person as a fair figure — she is intentionally vague on the others. All too frequently, she presents the argument about one of these crucial details and remains noncommittal.
当UBI的福音传道者为这些问题提供详细的答案时，备受吹捧的共识就会消失。 虽然Lowrey确实对其中一个问题采取了立场—她提出每人每月1000美元作为一个公平的数字—但她故意在其他问题上模糊不清。她经常过度频繁的提出关于其中一个关键细节的论点，并且仍然不置可否。
Is $1,000 a month actually sufficient to live on, as Lowrey claims? She devotes a chapter of the book to Sandy J. Bishop, a woman living in Maine who slipped through the cracks, becoming severely impoverished through no fault of her own.
正如Lowrey声称的那样，每月1000美元实际上足以维持生活吗？ 她将这本书的一章用于生活在缅因州的一位女士Sandy J. Bishop，她滑过裂缝，自己没有过错，而变得严重贫困。
Would $1,000 a month be “just enough to live on and not more” in Maine? According to a 2015 study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the average Mainer would need to earn $2,673.60 per month in order for the “Fair Market Rent” to be 30 percent of income, as housing advocates propose as a general rule.
在缅因州，每月1000美元是否“只够生活而没有更多”？ 根据国家低收入住房联盟2015年进行的一项研究，平均缅因人需要每月赚2,673.60美元才能使“公平市场租金”达到收入的30％，住房倡导者提议将这作为一般规则。
The report ranked Maine as the 23rd highest rent in the U.S., so getting by in states like California or New York would be even more cost-prohibitive.
该报告将缅因州列为美国租金排名第23位，因此在加利福尼亚州或纽约州等州的租金将更加昂贵。
Lowrey is well aware of the conflict when the UBI debate reaches the question of immigration:
当UBI的辩论达到移民问题时，Lowrey非常清楚冲突所在：
A UBI would raise a difficult conversation about who “all of us” are, driving a wedge between citizens and noncitizens, between native-born Americans and immigrants and the millions and millions of mixed-status families who blur that line…It might increase anti-immigrant sentiment, and spur the adoption of anti-immigrant restrictions and policies. It might also foster the creation of a two-tier labor market, with businesses seeking out undocumented workers who would be far cheaper to hire than native-born citizens.
一个UBI会引发一场关于“我们所有人”是谁，在公民和非公民之间，本土出生的美国人和移民之间以及成千上万的模糊这条线的混合身份家庭之间楔入的困难对话…… 这可能增加反移民情绪，并推动采取反移民限制和政策。 它还可能促进建立一个双层劳动力市场，企业寻找的无证工人比本地出生的公民便宜得多。
This is clearly a central, unavoidable question for any UBI advocate to address satisfactorily. But after three pages of acknowledging and explaining this argument, Lowrey equivocates: “There are no easy answers, especially for progressives.”
对于任何UBI倡导者来说，这显然是一个中心的，不可避免的问题，无法令人满意地解决。 但经过三页对这一论点的承认并解释之后，Lowrey暧昧地说：“没有简单的答案，特别是对于进步人士而言。”
THE UBI would be hugely expensive. If each American received $1,000 every month from the government, the annual price tag would be $3.9 trillion. “Even if the government replaced Social Security and many of its other antipoverty programs with a UBI, its spending would still have to increase by a number in the hundreds of billions, each and every year,” Lowery writes.
UBI将会非常昂贵。 如果每个美国人每月从政府那里收到1,000美元，那么每年的价格就会达到3.9万亿美元。 Lowery写道：“即使政府用UBI取代社会保障和许多其他反贫困计划，其支出仍然必须增加数千亿，每年一次。”
But Give People Money has little say about the implications of that — and many of the pilot programs held up as successful examples of UBI in action aren’t immediately comparable to the U.S. context.
但是“给人民钱”几乎没有说明这意味着什么—许多试点项目被认为是UBI行动的成功范例，但并不能立即与美国背景相提并论。
For example, Lowrey points to the success in Kenya of GiveDirectly, a U.S.-based charity providing no-strings-attached money instead of physical objects like clothing or mosquito nets to those in need.
例如，Lowrey指出在肯尼亚成功的GiveDirectly，这是一家总部位于美国的慈善机构，为那些有需要的人提供无附加条件的钱，而不是衣物或蚊帐等物品。
While this charity is combatting extreme poverty on a global scale, it is heavily funded by Silicon Valley investors and other wealthy UBI advocates as a means of testing the viability of the program. This is completely different from a government paying for UBI by eradicating the country’s social safety net.
虽然这个慈善机构正在全球范围内对抗极度贫困，但它仍然得到硅谷投资者和其他富有的UBI倡导者的大量资助，作为测试该计划可行性的一种手段。 这与政府通过消除国家的社会安全网以支付UBI完全不同。
UBI should not be seen as a radical break with capitalism, but rather as a new and somewhat novel way for the elite to further exploit and dominate the working class.
UBI不应该被视为对资本主义的彻底决裂，而是一种新的，或者说有点新颖的方式，让精英们进一步剥削和统治工人阶级。
Silicon Valley “futurists” may see a basic income as “A Capitalist Road to Communism” — the actual title of a keynote paper presented at a UBI conference, according to Lowrey — but the obscene wealth and corporate monopolies overseen by tech billionaires would remain untouched if a UBI were ever implemented.
根据Lowrey的说法，硅谷的“未来主义者”可能将基本收入视为“通往共产主义的资本主义之路”——在UBI会议上发表的主题演讲的实际标题——但由科技亿万富翁监督的肮脏财富和企业垄断仍将保持不变，如果UBI被实施了。
Lowrey hints at this when she states that UBI “would ameliorate one of the worst problems with the gig economy — namely, pay that works out to peanuts — without quashing the business model.” But shouldn’t we be figuring out how to quash the gig economy business model?
Lowrey暗示，UBI“会改善临时工经济中最严重的问题之一 —即工资过低的问题—而不会改变商业模式。”但我们不应该指出如何改变这个临时工经济商业模式吗？
Lowrey’s proposal appears, at first glance, to be utopian and idealistic, and in a sense, it is. It aspires to rescue capitalism from its inherent instability and class antagonisms while continuing the accumulation of capital in the hands of the super-wealthy. UBI is naively utopian in its aims — and unavoidably insufficient in what it would actually deliver for the majority of people in the U.S.
乍一看，Lowrey的提议似乎是乌托邦和理想主义的，从某种意义上说，它是。 它渴望从资产主义固有的不稳定性和阶级对抗中拯救资本主义，同时继续将资本积累在超级富豪手中。 UBI的目标是天真的乌托邦式的——并且不可避免地不足以满足美国的大多数人的需求。
https://socialistworker.org/2018/08/13/with-friends-like-these-who-needs-the-ubi
