This is the optimistic take. The reality is they will find some way to cull the unwanted poor. These elites in power are stupid, cruel, spiteful, and have no sense of decency.
What I think will happen is the US tries to mimic China by creating an even lower class of our workers that form a new industrial/manufacturing base to compete with.
This becomes less of a difficult pill to swallow if a) we're involved in a trade war, b) the economy has crashed and we must work our way out of it "for the country", c) the right people get enough money.
They're too smart for mass murder because that would actually spark a resistance, not to mention get other nations involved. I don't think a sweatshop labor economy will spark a resistance because we can't even resist our current labor abuses (and neither can that segment of China's population).
> What I think will happen is the US tries to mimic China by creating an even lower class of our workers that form a new industrial/manufacturing base to compete with.
Still too optimistic on how long-term the American approach will be. There won't be a UBI, the oligarchy will be paid directly from government coffers. The deficit, bonds and other government instruments will paper over the collapse of tax-revenue and population for a while, before the whole house of cards collapses[1]. I think the billionaires hope to be in space habitats or dead by then, if not, there's always their bunkers in New Zealand - their cache of gold bars should still work there after they ravage the USD. Capital knows no borders.
1. See late 1990s Russia. Only simple, extractive industries will chug along.
> If they don't adopt UBI then some populist politicians are gonna raise a flag and grab some power.
Only in a democracy.
China has elections, but is also a one-party state. Given the culture (thinking in terms of the group rather than the individual), I think they may actually want UBI anyway.
America is a democracy right now, but such things have been known to change before. Doesn't even need to be all at once — say the US disenfranchised convicted felons, that would mean the sitting president wouldn't be allowed to vote… and because I google before posting comments, wouldn't you know it, this is already a thing the states do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t...
The trouble is those populist politicians, in the US at least, are the very same billionaires at the top of the system who have somehow convinced the working class people they are on their side.
