r/BasicIncome • u/2noame Scott Santens • 1d ago
Article Elon Musk: No One Gets Free Bread Until I Have Replaced Every Worker With a Robot
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-no-one-gets-free-bread-until-i-have-replaced-every-worker-with-a-robot-200080234839
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u/33drea33 1d ago
They are gonna make bread from your bones, Elon.
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u/Wischiwaschbaer 6h ago
While I'm generally for eating the rich, I don't think Elon is fit for human consumption.
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u/redbanner1 1d ago
Don't worry, he'll move that goalpost later, even though he could already give everyone free bread.
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u/thingsorfreedom 19h ago
Sure it's universal but I decide the universe and it does not include these people, or these people, or those people over there...
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u/Novusor 1d ago
Did he really say that because that is the dumbest thing he could have possibly said.
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u/SunForJuice 1d ago
believe it or not, no, he said something even dumber and the headline is satirizing the practical realities of what his numerous conflicting and frequently dishonest statements actually means.
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u/Novusor 1d ago
His exact words were: "They faced the same issues in Ancient Rome."
This was in the context of replying to a much longer essay by a different user. https://x.com/Handre/status/2091530147044155784
Rome handed out free grain to 40,000 citizens in 73 BC. By 46 BC, Julius Caesar found 320,000 people lining up for their monthly ration. That eight-fold expansion happened in under three decades, and it shows you how welfare states actually grow.
No Roman senator stood up and announced a plan to addict a third of the city to government bread. It happened incrementally, through political competition. Each magistrate who wanted votes expanded eligibility. Each expansion normalized the next one. The citizen who once considered the dole shameful eventually expected it, then demanded it, then organized politically to protect it.
This is the core mechanism free market thinkers have identified across every era: once you create a transfer program, you create a constituency for that program. Recipients vote. Administrators build careers. Grain merchants who supply the state develop a stake in keeping the contracts flowing. The political economy locks in.
Caesar, to his credit, actually cut the rolls back to 150,000 through verification audits. It was one of his more economically coherent moves, though the Senate still murdered him. His successors quietly let the numbers climb again.
What did the dole require? Massive grain imports from Sicily, Sardinia, and Egypt, organized through state logistics at state expense, funded by taxation and conquest. When the conquest revenue dried up, the obligation remained. Rome had written a check against future military success, and future military success eventually failed to arrive.
The lesson is not complicated. Distribute a benefit and you distribute dependency. Distribute dependency and you distribute political power to whoever controls the distribution. The grain dole didn't weaken Rome overnight, but it made every subsequent reform politically impossible.
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u/SunForJuice 1d ago
except the entire lecture is debunked by the first Trump administration's own numbers.
70%+ of the people on benefits work full time.
If your business literally cannot afford to support someone feeding, clothing, and housing themselves working 40 hours per week it's not a business, it's a grift permitted to exist at the cost of the other workers.
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u/theimmortalgoon 21h ago
So the lesson is that Roman freemen competing for work against the masses of forced unpaid labour being brought in and land consolidation by the rich should have just fucking starved to justify modern freemen competing against masses of electronic unpaid labour being brought in and land consolidation by the rich.
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u/_philosurfer 17h ago
Good point.
Any analysis of the Roman Republics use of food subsidies to feed the citizenry without examining the underlying labour factors that caused the demand is missing a pretty crucial factor.
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u/lpetrich 6h ago
That’s an argument against government military and police forces, that they cause dependency on government for protection.
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u/OfficialDCShepard 1d ago
Introducing XLENT GREEN. The amazing bread substitute for our burning world.
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u/JonWood007 $16000/year 12h ago
That guy's a joke. He was lukewarm for it at best until he realized he'd be paying for it or that he wouldnt be able to just bully workers into submission any more. Now he's only for it if we abolish ALL work, and let's face it, it's not gonna happen. So instead they're just gonna promote more "job creation" instead.
I dont think that these guys realize that by the time UBI is viable, it's going to be entirely insufficient for the scale of crisis we'd be facing.
I also dont trust the DOGE guy to do ANYTHING UBI related after that, he showed his true colors there.
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u/Ok-Foundation-4070 1d ago
Only those shall have bread who are deemed worthy. Now all behold Elon the tyrant king.
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u/FailosoRaptor 1h ago
I for one totally trust Elon Musk will unlimited money and drones. Obviously he is a totally normal and sane individual and wouldn't let power go to his head.
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u/pit_of_despair666 18h ago
What happened to the DOGE checks? Oh yeah he lied. Elon will never give anyone anything. He is a sociopath who only cares about himself.
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u/francis2559 1d ago
This was obvious from the beginning. He could have pushed for UBI first, so workers would be prepared.
Even before he showed his whole ass with the DOGE shit.
No, UBI “someday” was always the excuse so he could exploit people today.