you'll tell me a jobs guarantee is better because it reduces reliance.

reliance on what, exactly?

it's often presented as the more "socialist" position than a ubi, but when that argument is presented it generally tends to indicate that the person presenting it hasn't actually read any marx. i mean, i'll concede that a ubi is more like communism than it is like socialism, but socialists that reject communism are called reactionaries.

a jobs guarantee just makes workers reliant on capital; you end up giving people the choice between working and starving, forcing them into things they don't want to do (and it's the anarchist in me that hates that.) and holding them at the whim of whatever capital decides. moving to unions doesn't fix that.

so, what's worse - being reliant on the state or being reliant on capital? you pick your poison, but at least the state is marginally democratic.

the central argument produced by marx is that the socialization of production makes worker reliance unavoidable; we need a social contract between each other, because we can't avoid our reliance on each other anymore. arguing against reliance and in favour of total self-ownership is undoing history. it's an argument for the return of an agrarian society (and if we're going there anyway, let's dust of paine. you may be surprised to find out that...).

so, that's kind of a dumb argument.

and, i don't even think you have to choose - there's no contradiction between a ubi and a jobs guarantee, if you want one.

but, i'm an artist, i don't want one.