Value is not intrinsic to the object, but varies depending on the market and its rules. Go to another country and your labour might be worth more or less.

So your labor is not worth $3/hour, it's worth $3/hour in this market. The approach I think would be better for everyone is designing the market so that your labor holds some value.

> Value is not intrinsic to the object, but varies depending on the market and its rules. Go to another country and your labour might be worth more or less.

Sure, but the issue is the relative difference between what your labor is worth and what your costs are. Automation reduces unskilled wages, meanwhile the worker's costs for necessities like housing have if anything gone up over time.

You could try to fix this by artificially raising wages for unskilled workers, but that's counterproductive. Increasing costs will increase prices workers pay when they buy things or drive people to substitute with alternatives that cause workers to lose their jobs. Exactly the opposite of the desired result.

What you really want is to reduce the cost of necessities so the wages they actually earn will go further. Doing so using government subsidies brings us right back to a UBI, and you seem to want something else.

The something else is basically changing the laws around housing and medicine to increase competition and drive down prices. Doing that is a good idea but good luck with that. The incumbents have a ton of lobbyists and a vested interest in staying fat.